Winchester Family Battles
by steamfan
Summary: Taking Sam back to Stanford for his second year of college turns into a life altering event for Dean. Warnings, Infant abuse!
1. Chapter 1

Title: Winchester Family Battles (Or never piss off a Winchester!)

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or CSI

Summary: Taking Sam back to Stanford for his second year of college turns into a life changing event for Dean.

This follows LA Demon Riots

Warnings: Infant abuse! Swearing, alternate universe, Winchester wrath and family bonding

The dream had been very real. So real in fact, that Sam tried to stop the cops from shooting Dean, only to fall out of bed. "Vision or nightmare?" his brother asked from the bed next to his in the motel room.

"Vision," Sam gasped as he lay on the floor. "We're heading through Vegas today right?"

"Yep," Dean rolled over and sat up. "We should be hitting good old Vegas by dinner time."

"Keep your guns, in fact; keep all of your weapons in the trunk. I'll cover you with mine. Keep your protection charms though," Sam said as he got off the floor and headed to the bathroom.

"What? We're headed into trouble and you want me to be unarmed?" Dean couldn't believe what his little brother was saying.

"You only get into trouble BECAUSE you're armed, Dean. If you don't have a gun, you won't be the one in trouble. The other person will be and they deserve it." Sam yelled firmly. He wasn't about to let the cops kill his brother for what would be some righteous anger. "This wasn't supernatural. It was a normal, well, a non-possessed person anyway." He ducked back into the room.

"You won't have any trouble defending yourself without the guns and if you are armed, the cops are going to think you are the bad guy."

"So why don't we just skip Vegas all together?" That plan seemed reasonable to Dean.

"Someone is depending on us to be in Vegas. If we don't go, then an innocent person will probably die. Now as long as you aren't armed, then everything should go fine. Let's hit the road." Sam couldn't tell his brother why they needed to be in Vegas. He couldn't explain just who his brother would be rescuing. It would tear his brother apart and he would go hunting the bitch that was responsible.

"Who needs us in Vegas?" Dean asked as he threw his clothes on.

"Look Dean, if I tell you any more, this won't go the way it's supposed to. You just need to be yourself and not worry about it. As long as you are unarmed, things will go great." When Dean threw a worried look at him, Sam sighed. "Look will you just trust me? I know what I'm talking about." It was the request for trust that did the job. There was no one Dean trusted more than his father and little brother. Without a word, but with a heartfelt sigh, Dean handed over the knife he kept under his pillow.

Sam smiled as he took the knife and put it into Dean's bag. It was three months since the Demon Riots as they were now called. Sam had his first vision just two weeks after that.

They were all celebrities now, to his family's disgust. Sam had made it to celebrity status after one reporter managed to track him down at school during finals and got the exclusive of the year, film of Sam having his first awake vision. Sam had been having vision dreams for weeks before the Demon Riots had occurred, but hadn't believed them to be anything more than stress related nightmares. After the Demon Riots that had changed and Sam had gotten up from where the vision had knocked him on his ass to run and save the Dean of Stanford University and several top VIPs from a demon summoned by a pissed off student.

Like in most cases where a demon was summoned, the demon had turned on the summoner, only this time Sam was the public hero for sending it back to hell afterwards. The real shocker for all three men that had come with their celebrity status was when the '50 sexiest men in the US' poll had come out. To their astonishment all three of them had made the poll, with Sam coming in at 37, Dean coming in at 26 and to Dean's horror and John's embarrassment, John had come in at number 7. It had made Sam laugh to find out that his father had beat Dean in the poll.

It was right after that when Dean had shown up at Stanford to take Sam 'home' for the summer. The rumors that were all over the campus (and all over the US for that matter) about the family were growing in such ridiculous leaps and bounds that Sam was actually grateful to return to the drifting lifestyle of Hunting for three months. While Jessica wasn't pleased to not be able to see Sam for three months, she couldn't complain either as she was heading back home to New York as well. She, however, was more than pleased to see her boyfriend on the poll.

These days all it took was the two of them showing up in a small town's sheriff office and asking, rather than scamming as they had done for years, for the town's cooperation to find themselves inundated with information, home cooked meals, and more girls than even Dean could handle.

While his brother had a healthy interest in the fairer sex, even he was more than a bit put off by the offers some of those girls were making. Dean may have been a poster boy for the flirt who picked up a girl in every town; he wasn't someone who cheated on any girl he was with. When he was 'with' someone that was it, he might agree to a threesome with a couple of hot girls, but only if they both understood that it was just for the night and he wouldn't be choosing either of them for anything more. He never wanted to leave someone in his father's shoes of grief over his death, which he knew would come sooner or later at the hands of something supernatural.

All three Winchesters had hunted together for the three months of summer break. For the three of them to spend that time together was healing in more ways than one. John and Sam had both done a lot of talking, and while they still pushed each other's buttons and yelled at each other, they now understood where a lot of their anger towards each other was coming from. (Sam personally thought his psychology courses were helping more than he'd ever imagined they would.)

Now Dean and Sam were headed back to Stanford for Sam's second year. John was taking care of a particularly nasty haunted house and would meet them at Stanford before Sam's classes started to hook back up with Dean and to lay out a course schedule for the students who had been pestering Sam for Hunting 101 lessons. It was nothing more than what he'd taught himself and his sons; Latin, martial arts, gun safety courses, first aid courses, and a police course in spotting patterns of serial killers. If the students couldn't handle this sort of basic study course then they had no business trying to become a Hunter. Or as John had told the Dean, if they can't handle this they won't be able to handle working a real case that had real demons, spirits and monsters much less working with anything of that nature as allies. After all, if they couldn't stomach looking at photos of corpses how were they going to be able to handle a lunch meeting with demon informant at a demon bar where blood, entrails and other assorted disgusting things were on the menu?


	2. Chapter 2

As Dean had predicted they made Vegas by dinner time. Dean pulled into the parking lot of a back street bar, not only having learned by now that it was the best way to avoid reporters, but it was a bar he'd been to before. It had good food, decent music even if it wasn't his beloved mullet rock and hot chicks for waitresses. It also had a legal poker game in the back. He knew that Sam would be satisfied with waiting and eating dinner at the bar while he played a game or two. Or maybe got a date with one of the waitresses, the last one he'd picked up here had been really hot in the backseat.

The moment Sam saw the waitress he knew this was it. He just thanked God that Dean trusted him enough to hand over his weapons. Not without questions no, but he had never had a problem with questions, unlike their father. He sat through the flirting and the invitation to come back to her place to take up where they'd left off. It was all he could do to keep his face neutral. It wasn't neutral enough to Dean.

He almost stopped flirting with the waitress, but caught Sam's headshake. This was whatever they were here for then. Maybe she was in trouble and he was here to help. Ok, he'd forgo the poker game in the back and stick to business. Whatever was going on was more important than adding to the family coffers, not that that was a problem anymore.

Since they had become THE Hunting Family in the US, Sam had set them up with a web site that would, after much screening, send them paying jobs. It was just one of the web sites that the REAL demon hunters around the world were setting up. Each site was linked to other sites where hunters advertised their various specialties. It was all watched over by, appropriately, the Watcher's Council. They were the largest single hunting organization in the world. Thanks to their web mistress, no fake hunters could link to their web sites. That meant that their reputation outside of the hunting community was gaining a five star rating. Any one who had a real problem went there.

That was where Dad was right now. That particular haunted house was very nasty, with multiple murder victims haunting the place. John wouldn't have taken the job without both of his sons to back him up if it hadn't been near Bobby's place and Caleb had been there for a visit. With those two to back him up, Dean knew he would be relatively safe and Sam did need to get back in time for school. Even after the fee was split three ways with Caleb and Bobby, John's share would hold them over for a good three months and provide Sam with some spending money at school.

Dean and Sam followed Misty the waitress back to her apartment. "Are you going to give me a clue here Sam?" Dean asked looking up at the run down building.

"No, just be ready for anything. I've got your back out here." Dean nodded and wished that his little brother would have allowed him to take his weapons. But the trust he had in Sam meant that there wasn't so much as a pocket knife on him. He felt naked. Taking a deep breath he got out of the car and went up to the apartment.

Misty opened the door and said, "Good you're here. I'll just be a minute." He slowly walked into the living room, every sense on alert while she went into a room in the back.

Outside the apartment building Sam could see the cops pulling up. There were multiple cars and Sam couldn't seem to pull in enough oxygen to breath. Would Dean's not having a weapon be enough to save his life? He called for an ambulance.

Dean wasn't standing in the doorway to the apartment, which was a fact he would later say many thank you prayers for. As he turned back from scanning the room one more time to the sound of the bedroom door opening, his hearing cut out as his eyes took in an unspeakable sight. Misty was yelling something about a kid and throwing a bundle with small waving arms at him. Instinctively he threw himself on the floor, reaching out and just catching the bundle.

His hearing returned as the door was broken down, but all he could hear were the baby's screams of pain. He had managed to catch the baby, but it hadn't been enough. He was laying full length on the living room carpet with his arms fully extended and the baby's head cradled at his elbows. The baby's arms and legs hadn't been cushioned, and if that wasn't multiple breaks he saw, he was a Windego.

"Freeze Las Vegas PD!"

"GET AN AMBULANCE!" Dean screamed.


	3. Chapter 3

There was the usual confusion that came from any crime scene, but Jim Brass was well used to that. He was also used to celebrities being involved in said crime scenes. What he wasn't used to was the fact that this celebrity was a well known demon hunter and the crime was a badly injured baby.

According to the cops who had broken down the door, the mother was claiming that the hunter had a gun and had threatened her and hurt the baby. She had called the cops when he had threatened her.

Something wasn't right about this picture, and it wasn't just the fact that the hunter hadn't moved since the uniforms had busted down the door. His entire focus was on the baby and the EMTs taking care of it. Brass wondered where the other hunters were. The Winchesters were a seriously close family and from what he had read on the news, they were rarely apart from one another. In fact, the only exception that he knew about was the fact that the youngest attended Stanford University in California.

Brass watched as the EMTs carefully transferred the baby who was wearing just a t-shirt and a diaper onto a backboard they had slid under the hunter's arms. Brass was a father and the look on this kid's face was something that he had seen before, and it wasn't on the face of a child abuser. It had been on his own the first time he'd seen someone deliberately injure a child.

He turned back to Sergeant Brice who was working with him tonight. "Place them both under arrest. Until the CSI's sort out who was where we can't tell who's responsible here." It wasn't as if he couldn't guess though. The woman wanted revenge on Winchester for something he did and the baby was the one paying for it.

Brice placed the woman in the custody of a female officer, not even blinking at the woman's sobs and pleading to let her go, that Winchester was the bad guy not her. Brass followed Brice as he took Winchester into custody and down to the street. Winchester gave no resistance other than to refuse to move until the gurney holding the baby went first. He still hadn't taken his eyes off the baby. Brass wondered whether they were going to have trouble when the ambulance took off.

Down at street level Brass took a moment to brief Grisom and his team. "Woman calls and says there is a man holding a gun and threatening her. Uniforms show up, break down the door because they hear her and a baby screaming, only to find him," Brass gestured at Winchester, "Flat on the floor in the living room holding the baby in his arms like this." Brass showed them what he'd seen. "I also watched Brice frisk him. No gun."

Grisom nodded. "Nick, check the rest of the apartment. See if you can find any sign of a struggle or anything else suspicious. Sarah, Greg, you two process the living room." Grisom was interrupted by a cry of "Dean!"

Grisom and Brass turned to watch a very tall and lanky young man race towards Winchester. It was the younger brother. Having his little brother show up seemed to bring Winchester out of his state of shock. "I'm fine Sammy. Go with the baby, make sure the kid's ok."

"I'll follow in the car. We can't leave it here." Considering the arsenal that Brass had seen on tv that the trunk of that car held, he was grateful that these kids realized that they shouldn't be leaving armories like that lying around.

"GRIS! I NEED THE EMTS!" That was Nick screaming out from the apartment window. One of the paramedics grabbed the equipment from the gurney and raced back up stairs to the apartment.

Nick was the most laid back and easy going of all the CSIs. Brass didn't want to know what was so bad that he had to scream that out the window. Everyone waited just as they were until the paramedic came down the steps holding yet another baby. This time the baby was wrapped in a blanket.

"Sammy," Winchester's voice cracked.

"Don't worry Dean. It's going to be alright. I'll look after them." With that, Sam Winchester ran back to his car and followed the ambulance to the hospital.

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In the interrogation room Dean Winchester was once more going over his story. "No, I wasn't armed except for my protective amulets, a baggie full of rock salt and my knowledge of how to fight."

"Where are your guns, Mr. Winchester?" Catherine Willows was a gentle voiced, but very stubborn CSI. When she got her teeth into something it took a lot to get her to let go. She knew he carried multiple guns, she'd seen it when the Riots had taken place. There was also the article one reporter had written about how the man was a walking arsenal who even slept with a large hunting knife under his pillow. Considering his line of work, that made sense. What didn't make sense was him ditching any of his weapons for a bit of bling bling.

"They're locked up in the trunk of my car. My brother has the car and he took it to the hospital to make sure that those kids are ok." Dean was tired of the questions. He didn't know what was going on. "Listen ma'am. All I know is that I was invited up to her apartment to have a roll in the sack and the next thing I know she's throwing a baby at me. I think I remember her screaming something about the baby, but I was so fixated on catching the kid I can't remember what she was yelling."

"Why weren't you armed? From what I understand that is a very big deviation from what you normally do."

Dean sighed, frustrated. "Look, I wasn't looking for a job, ok? I knew something wasn't going to go down well, but I was hoping it would be a jealous boyfriend or something. Sam didn't say anything about a baby." He hoped by being up front with the lady she would do the same for him. "Sam said that something was going to go wrong but if I had any of my weapons I'd be the one in trouble not the person responsible for the trouble. I had to be in Vegas. I couldn't just avoid the city because someone innocent was depending on me to be here. He wouldn't tell me anything more."

"So you just gave up your weapons." Catherine didn't believe him. Even if his brother had asked him too, it didn't make any sense, especially with the reports of his apparent paranoia circulating the among the rumor mongers.

Dean just looked at her, the calmest he'd been since he'd been hauled in on suspicion of child abuse. "You're right. With a lame ass excuse like that, I wouldn't have given up my weapons if it had been anyone else. I trust Sam."


	4. Chapter 4

Like a lot of people in the US, Warrick Brown had been following the story of the Demon Hunting Winchesters for the past four months. He never thought he'd get to meet any of them. But it looked like tonight he would. Sam Winchester, the Seer of the family, was standing in the doorway to the infant pediatric ward of the Las Vegas Community General. He was also carving something on the doorway just above his head with a rather large knife. A duffle bag that Warrick assumed had his Hunting gear was at his feet.

"What are you doing?" Warrick asked, half puzzled and half amused.

"Carving warding sigils to guard the children," Sam said, not bothering to look behind him.

"Um, it isn't that I'm against guarding children. But is the supernatural really that much of a threat here? Is something after the kids?" Warrick asked. He hadn't considered a hospital a place where someone should be wary.

Sam half laughed, half sighed. "Hospitals are a good source of death, both from illness and violence. Violent deaths are a magnet for trouble. When you add in Winchester kids, it pays to take as many precautions as possible." He turned around and faced the large black man.

"Winchester kids?" Warrick was confused; no one had told him that there were any Winchester children here. Heck he hadn't even known there were any Winchester children.

"The twins brought in tonight are my brother's children. He doesn't know that yet. The only reason I know is because I had a vision and I heard what that bitch was screaming at him when she threw Dean's little girl." Sam took a deep breath to get his anger under control.

"There is nothing more important to my family, than family. That's why we became Hunters in the first place. A demon killed my mother when I was six months old, right above my crib. The very idea of hurting or neglecting one of our kids is," he shook his head, not being able to wrap his mind around it, "Unconceivable.

"Even before we were old enough to Hunt we were never told we were worthless brats. Dad may have left us alone a time or two, but it was only after Dean was old enough to look after the both of us." Sam took another deep breath to combat his anger.

"Dean's going to go through the roof when he finds out these are his kids. You'd better wait to tell him until you know he can have custody and she'll be going to jail for what she did, not that it's going to help her any."

"What do you mean it's not going to help her any?" Warrick had been following along until that last sentence. He followed Sam into the ward where he put his duffle bag down next to the bassinet where the twins were. Vegas General was a hospital that believed in doing everything that they could for their patients, even if it wasn't standard procedure elsewhere. Twins and other multiple birth children were always placed in the same bassinet if they were under six months old.

Sam turned around and looked at Warrick, the determination and anger vivid on his face. "I mean that we won't protect her after what she did. No one else will either. We know that the demon that killed my mother is still after my family. We've killed too many of its spawn for it to leave us alone. The chances of it not going after her are pretty slim."

He reached into his bag and brought out a canister of salt and a bag of cat's eye shells. These he spread in a ring around both babies. He turned to the nurse who was hovering next to him. "Don't break the circle. It will keep out spirits and demons and is for their protection. You can reach into without a problem; just don't take them out of it if at all possible."

"The little girl still needs to get casts put on," the nurse said apologetically. She understood that Sam was trying to help.

Sam nodded, "I did say any more than necessary. I understand you'll have to move them occasionally. I'll go with the one you have to move and stand guard." He then went to line the windows and doorways with salt.

Warrick turned to the doctor who had just stepped around Sam, entering the ward and carrying two files. "Hi, I'm Warrick Brown. I'm with the crime lab." He showed his id to the doctor. "What can you tell me about the twins that came in tonight?"

The doctor sighed, she hated cases like this. "Baby John and Jane Doe, well both children are abused. The little girl is the worst off with multiple fractures of both arms and both legs. We've got them splinted and iced so as to bring down the swelling. We'll be getting her into casts shortly. Both children are bruised, from what I can tell; I'd say that it was due to mishandling rather than punching. Neither of the children show any sign of shaken baby syndrome. Both are undernourished and filthy. My guess is that the mother neglected them and handled them roughly. This has been going on for a while, so probably since they've been born. These are the first broken bones but they're doozies."

"Was it possible the little girl was thrown across the room?" Warrick had talked to Brass before coming down to the hospital and that was Brass' guess. That combined with Sam Winchester's statement that he had 'seen' the little girl thrown had Brown leaning towards that being the case.

"If someone partially caught her, possibly. Her head and spine weren't injured. The breaks came from this direction," the doctor demonstrated by manipulating Warrick's arm and smacking it gently. "This was the site of impact."

"Have they been cleaned up yet?" Warrick hoped not for their sake. It would have washed any evidence away.

"Not yet," the doctor smiled, "We've been waiting for you. Send whoever did this away for a long time, please."

"We'll do our best," Warrick promised. Considering the fact that next to the FBI lab in Virginia, Las Vegas had the best crime lab in the country, Warrick was sure that they be able to get a conviction.


	5. Chapter 5

John Winchester was tired and hurting. That haunted house had really taken its toll on him. Five murder victims and all of them pissed off at anyone who even set foot in the house; yeah that was a hard job. At least the family had gone to Sam's website immediately when they knew something was wrong. It had taken days of research and then Bobby had to dig up the entire basement before he had found the graves. All the while the ghosts had been throwing everything not nailed down and a few things that should have been. He was lucky nothing was broken.

The fee was good too. The family had been rich and honest, a rare combination. The mother had been suspicious of them in spite of the fact that they were affiliated with the Watcher's Council. She had insisted on being there when they did the salt and burn. It was a good thing for her that she had guts. If she had been one of those who would freak out at the ghost activity Caleb probably would have let her take her own risks. He hated dealing with civilians. It had only been the fee and the fact that John was thinking about going in alone that had persuaded him to join in.

She had been more than pleased with their efforts and had granted an interview with the local paper on just what exactly they had done for her and the house her family was planning on turning into a bed and breakfast. John hoped that for her sake the customers came flocking to see and stay at the house. He always enjoyed kicking evil's ass, but getting credit for it (rather than being a celebrity for just doing his job) was nice too.

He got out of his truck and walked over to the administration building for his appointment with the Stanford University staff. Not only had quite a few students pestered Sam about him teaching them Hunting 101 as he liked to call it, the staff had been inundated with requests due to Sam's attending school here. John had talked with the school's Dean, a Mr. Howard, and had agreed to look through the classes they normally offered to see if any were of use to a Hunter. He had been pleased and surprised to find that quite a few basic and advanced classes fell under that category.

Now he was here to talk to the professors to see if any of them had the aptitude to take the lead in working with the students who wanted to take this kind of career track. He opened the door that led to the conference room he had been directed to only to see someone he had not expected. Small, red headed, gentle temperament and about his son's Dean's age, few people knew outside of the Hunting community and few inside at that, that Willow Rosenburg was the most powerful white witch in the world. It was she that had called all of the Slayers, turning a nearly impossible situation of just one Slayer at a time into the army that had turned the tides of more than one apocalyptic battle.

She was also the web mistress in charge of the web links that linked the supernatural hunting community together. Now a request for help, either of research or backup, went a lot smoother than it had just six months ago. "Willow, it's good to see you," John said as he hugged the small witch. In the short time that he had known her they had become good friends.

"Hey John, I thought I'd find you here. I've been asking the professors about their graduate students, trying to find out if any of them had an aptitude for becoming Watchers. We're a little short handed you know," Willow said. It was the look in her eye though, and the fact that it was her who was here, that told John this was more than just a 'let's see if we can find more translators' trip.

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"OK, what have we got?" Grissom asked as he sat down at the head of the table. While this was a fairly straight forward case, in spite of what the mother, a Misty Baker, was trying to sell, Grissom wasn't about to leave any holes.

It was Nick who started off the roll of information. "There are no guns of any kind in the apartment. I didn't find any signs of a struggle, no broken objects, no tossed bedding, no blood pools or spatter. The most remarkable thing was how filthy the babies' room was. It didn't look like it had been cleaned since they were born. The sheets in the playpen stank, there wasn't a crib, no toys anywhere, there was a full garbage can of disposed diapers, Griss it wasn't the worst I've seen but it was really bad.

"I went and processed the rest of the apartment and didn't find anything connected to Winchester. I did, however, find the kids' birth certificates. Other than the stuff the hospital filled in, name of mother, hospital, attending physician, etc, it was still blank. She never named those kids. The father's name was blank. She never signed the certificate.

"There was barely enough formula in that apartment for one baby, much less two. There were no other foods for the kids, no baby cereal, no little jars of mashed veggies, nothing. All together, I'd say that Winchester has never been farther into that apartment than the front room and Misty Baker has been severely neglecting those kids." Nick had strong feelings about children and abusers but he did his best to remain impartial.

Grissom nodded and looked to Sarah. "We only got Misty's prints on the door. In fact, we couldn't find any other prints in the entire apartment. From what we could find, no one other than Misty and the twins was ever in that apartment before that night.

"Dean Winchester never touched anything. The only trace we could find of him was epiphylls on the carpet and a small amount of blood and hair. That corresponds with the uniforms story that he was on the floor where it appeared that he caught the little girl. All the physical evidence agrees with Winchester's story that he walked into the apartment, turned around and caught the baby as he dived to the floor. We couldn't find any other trace of him."

"Catherine?" Grissom asked, turning to her.

"I talked with Dean Winchester; he said that he had left his weapons locked up in the trunk of his car because his brother, Sam had told him too. He wouldn't have done it for anyone else but he trusts his brother. It's also a well known fact that his brother is a Seer. He has visions of the future and Dean said that Sam told him that someone in Vegas needed him to be here.

"He said that he thought that Misty was in trouble and was really asking him back to her apartment for a showdown with an abusive boyfriend. Either that or she wanted him to knock her up because he's famous."

"You're kidding!" Sarah laughed.

"Nope. The look on the guy's face was pure disgust. Apparently, he's had that offer before. He says he wasn't going to take her up on it if that was the case and I believe him. I also talked with her co-workers and her boss. The twins are hers, but she never talked about them and they all thought she had given them up for adoption because right after they were born she returned to her party ways. She stayed out late, drank, smoked, probably did drugs, the works." Catherine was disgusted and didn't bother to hide it. She only one child and she loved her daughter to death. She had fought hard to both raise her daughter and to keep her. The very idea of neglecting her child, much less abusing her was beyond comprehension.

Grissom turned last to Warrick. "There is no trace of Dean Winchester on the boy at all. There is no trace of him on the front of the girl and what trace I could find corresponds with him having caught her. I ran into Sam Winchester at the hospital. He says that the twins are Dean's kids, but Dean doesn't know it. The only reason he knows it is because he had a vision of Misty throwing the little girl. He could hear what she was yelling, but he didn't tell me what that was. He was too busy setting up wards and charms and stuff to guard both of the twins from demons and such.

"Now this is where it gets interesting. He asked me not to tell his brother that the twins were his kids until Misty goes to jail for what she did and his brother can get custody. Apparently the reason their family turned to Hunting in the first place was because their mother was killed by a demon. Because of that," he paused for emphasis, "They grew up with the idea that hurting a family member was the worst thing in the world you could do. Family means everything to them and that means that they won't protect Misty."

"What did he mean by that?" Grissom pounced.

"They're at war with the demon that killed their mom. Sam doesn't think there is any chance that the same demon won't go after Misty. He also said that no other demon hunter will protect her either after what she did." Grim glances were exchanged around the table. Had that been a threat, or a promise?


	6. Chapter 6

Brass had come in just before Warrick had given his report. "That's more than interesting, because Misty Baker was just killed in a demon attack." His announcement shocked the CSI's into silence. "Do these guys have alibis?"

"Dean Winchester has been sitting in our interrogation room or a jail cell for twenty four hours. Sam Winchester has been standing guard over his supposed niece and nephew for the same amount of time." Catherine was the one who pointed that out.

"As far as I can tell they've been very up front and straight forward with us," Sarah said, reviewing the evidence in her mind.

"Let's see if they made any phone calls," Grissom said. "Nick, go over their phone records for the past two months. Brass and I will talk to Sam Winchester again and get more details about why he thinks Misty Baker will be killed. Warrick; go see if we have any evidence of the demon attack and take Greg with you. Catherine, Sarah, each of you go and get DNA samples from Dean and Sam Winchester and both of the twin babies. Then get a witch or someone who knows this stuff to go over what these guys are carrying with them in the way of supplies. See if there is anything that can be used to summon a demon."

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"A WATCHER?!?!! You want me to be a WATCHER?!?" John Winchester was dumbfounded. Of all the things that Willow could have asked, this was not any of the things he had expected. Yes he knew how hard up the Council was for field Watchers, they had lost most of them a few years ago just before Willow had called all of the Slayers, but for him to be a Watcher to a Slayer. It was something that had not only had never occurred to him, the request had hit him like a brick wall out of no where.

"John, you know how to teach. You taught both of your boys how to be Hunters. Ok, so you had a hard time with Sam. You're his dad; you're supposed to have a hard time with him." Willow wasn't about to give this up. She had two Slayers who needed Watchers fast as they were about to turn eighteen. She and the other Scoobies were more than pleased with their reworking of the eighteenth birthday ritual. Now when a Slayer turned eighteen, she graduated from Slayer school and was given her first Watcher instead of being drugged and shoved into a room with a free running vampire and told to kill it or be killed.

"Not only that, but if Dean will agree to becoming a Watcher too, then I can give your family two Slayers and that will be a good thing because you'll have better backup than I can send you normally when you go after your demon and Sam's a Seer, they really need to have good bodyguard types and he's not going to go for you and Dean doing that any more and this way he feels like he's useful to someone outside of his family cause you know he'll be helping them with their Slayer duties when the PTB's start knocking cause they'll knock on his head and Slayers can't handle the headaches that come with being a Seer so he'll feel better about taking the pain for them cause he's a gentleman, you raised him that way and,"

John covered her mouth out of self preservation. He thanked god that Sam had never babbled like Willow did. He stood there holding his hand over her mouth and going over her babble sorting out what she'd been saying.

Sam would take having two Slayers look after him better than he and Dean. One of the things they had worked on this summer was how he had been feeling smothered and useless, rather than a partner in the demon hunting. He would become the Seer for the Slayers because the PTB's did tend to take the easier route if there was a Seer available. "The Council is going to assign them here? I don't want Sam to have to leave school." He took his hand away.

"No problem. We can set up a Slayer house right here on campus. And that is a good thing because we'd like the girls to go to school too. Now that there are so many Slayers they can do other things besides Slaying with their lives, get a little more balance you know?" Willow stopped, blushing. Telling John Winchester that a Slayer should have more balance in her life was very ironic. The man had spent the last almost nineteen years chasing and obsessing over the demon that had killed his wife when Sam was six months and Dean was four. Telling him that HE and his boys were the balance they needed was worse.

John scratched his chin, considering. Two Slayers would help both with Sam and the hunt for the demon. They would also help Dean with his empty nest syndrome. Some people may have believed that John was ignorant of the stresses he had placed on his eldest son, but he wasn't. He knew Dean had been just as much of a parent to Sam as he had been, sometimes more. Dean had always felt responsible for Sammy, especially after carrying him out of the house when Mary had died. Giving him his own Slayer to look after would help channel that protective streak of his and at the same time give him reasons to still hang out with his little brother. "Ok, we'll do it. But if that demon turns up again, we'll be going after it."

"No problem and we'll still keep an eye out for the signs that it's active. I've already got a new person in the tracking department and he's assigned to just that one demon." The tracking department was a new invention of Xander's. He had heard from one of the demon hunters who had shown up at the Slayer school that certain types of demons, different breeds of vampires for instance, actually had a migration pattern.

He had set up a department where people who had washed out of the 'this is coming down on your heads' department (they hated the word prophecy with a passion) and set them to tracking various types and breeds of demons, haunts, etc. The tracking department was just starting to pay off. They had gotten ahead of a migrating pack of vampires just last week and were developing a series of maps that had hot spots of genuine haunt activity pinpointed. Not surprising, the most serious and deadly were the old battlegrounds and massacre sites. They had been the easiest to spot. Too bad they weren't easy to deal with.

"Can you get us to where ever the boys are before you take us to Cleveland? Dean and Sam are supposed to meet me here before school starts but they haven't gotten here yet." John wasn't worried, just yet anyway. His boys could take care of themselves.

"Sure, let's go." And with that Willow opened a small portal and dragged John through it.


	7. Chapter 7

"Mr. Winchester? I'm Captain Brass of the LVPD and this is Gil Grissom of the LVPD crime lab." Brass introduced them to the lanky young man. Sam Winchester was rocking a baby and giving him a bottle in the infant pediatric ward. Brass assumed that this was the boy baby of the twins because there weren't any casts on the kid. He noted that unlike other family members who might have been doing the same thing, this young man had a shot gun across his lap.

Sam noticed the look at the shot gun from the cop and smiled. "Yes I have a permit for it, Captain. It is also only loaded with rock salt shells. The 9mm in the waistband of my pants is loaded with silver and consecrated iron. I have a permit and a concealed permit for that as well. No one in my family goes unarmed against things that go bump in the night if we can help it and right now, these little guys need to be guarded."

"So I was told. Now I need you to tell me." Brass knew he was coming across as hard and uncompromising, but he had not only a woman killed inside a jail cell while she was in police custody, he also had two uniforms downstairs with broken bones swearing that she was killed by something supernatural. Sam Winchester had already said something that could be construed as a threat. It was time to get to the bottom of this, now.

"Yesterday morning I was woken up by a vision of two uniformed officers gunning my brother down because he was firing a gun into a woman who had just thrown a baby at him across a room. As she threw the baby I heard her yell, "Here's your worthless brat, you fucking creep, leave me with the little," at that point all I heard were the gunshots.

"I knew that it was going to happen when we went to Vegas and that if we didn't go the baby would probably die. The only thing I could think of to change the outcome was to make sure that Dean was unarmed except for his protection amulets." He showed them the leather bands across his wrist. "Now a hospital is a place where sometimes you have to be, but for one of us it is also a bad place because we tend to be trouble magnets. Of course, most of the time we're looking for the trouble too, so six on one hand, half a dozen on the other, you know?

"But still, a lot of people die from injuries sustained from violent actions in hospitals. That makes hospitals not such a nice place for anyone who is or who might be psychic. I don't know if either of the twins are or not, but I'm taking precautions until I do know for sure.

"As for what I told your CSI Brown, I meant it. These are Dean's kids and there isn't a single demon hunter in the world that will get between that bitch and the demon when it comes for her. I know you have to, being police and all, but we don't have to and we won't." Sam looked down at the sleeping baby in his arms. "How do you people do this?"

"What do you mean?" Grissom asked.

"Day in and day out you people see the worst things that one person can do to another and yet you don't let it get to you. I'm going to have nightmares for years, and I only saw an assault on a baby. You've seen so much worse." Sam laughed softly. "I think my brother is right. Demons I understand, people are just plain crazy."

"Not everyone is suited to being a cop," Grissom said gently. "We need to understand what you mean when you say this demon is coming for Misty Baker."

Sam sighed and got up to place the baby boy back in the bassinet beside his sister. He made sure that the ring around the children was still intact and went and sat back down in the rocking chair. "On the night of my six month birthday, after everyone was supposed to be down for the night, a demon came into my nursery. For some reason my mom came in to check on me or something. She woke my dad up with her screams. He came charging into my room to find my mother on the ceiling with bleeding from a slice across her belly. She burst into flames. My dad grabbed me, thrust me into my big brother's arms and told him to take me out of the house and to not look back. He tried to go back and rescue my mom, but it was too late.

"That's how my family got into demon hunting. My dad learned everything he could and taught us. One of the things that he learned was that my mom wasn't the only one it had happened to. It always happens on the child's six month birthday. For some reason that is the time of vulnerability. Sometimes the entire family is killed, sometimes just the mother, but in every case the way the mother dies is the same.

"I don't know why. No one does. What I do know is that my family has made tracking down this demon and killing both it and as many of its spawn as we can our life's work. It's my father's obsession to be bluntly honest. The demon will come after that bitch. But it won't happen until the twins are exactly six months old. So, you've got time to get ready for that. My guess is about a month, maybe a month and a half."

"They turned six months old this morning. Misty Baker is dead and two of our officers are downstairs with broken bones." Brass was blunt.

It was the look of anger that changed Brass' opinion. This guy wasn't behind Misty Baker's death. His words helped as well, not that Sam Winchester was upset over Misty Baker's death. "Son of a bitch! Damn, I should have checked, we could have caught the damned thing. Do you have any surveillance tapes of the cell where she died?" If Sam Winchester wasn't obsessed with catching the demon who killed his mother, he was doing a find job of pretending he was.


	8. Chapter 8

Grissom was heading down the hall to talk to Dean Winchester when Conrad Ecklie cornered him. "Grissom, I hope that,"

"Dean and Sam Winchester have been cleared of all suspicions, both of child abuse and using a demon as a murder weapon," Grissom interrupted what was sure to be a lecture on politics. "Sam Winchester had his vision of the child being in danger less than 48 hours ago, and neither one has used his cell phone for five days. During the time Misty Baker was being killed, both young men were under constant supervision, Dean by us and Sam by the good nurses and doctors of Las Vegas Community General. Also, neither one carries anything remotely resembling demon summoning supplies. I'm on my way to take Dean Winchester to view the tape we have of the killing."

Grissom smiled as he twiddled his fingers in farewell at Conrad. He loved being able to get one over on his nemesis, especially when it was because of rock solid evidence and the way his team had performed gathering and evaluating it flawlessly. He had just walked into the interrogation room where Dean Winchester was having his mouth swabbed by Catherine when what he could only describe as a tear in reality formed against (in?) the back wall and two people stepped through it.

"Dang it, Willow, I'm never going to get used to that!" John exclaimed shuddering violently.

"It's not that bad you big baby!" Willow huffed. Grissom, Catherine, and the uniform stared at them in shock. Dean was more miffed that Catherine had stopped mid swab to stare at his dad than he was surprised to see his dad and Willow. He poked her to get her to finish.

John ignored her; they were never going to agree on that. "What did you do now Dean?" he asked, looking around the interrogation room. He'd been in enough of them over the years to know what one looked like even without the uniform next to the door.

"I didn't do anything, Dad!" Dean protested.

"Actually, he didn't," Grissom stepped into the conversation. "I just came to tell Dean that he's been cleared and to ask him to come with me to go over this surveillance tape. Right now we're just doing the follow up, dotting i's and crossing t's." He didn't want to say anything about Dean's possible paternity. "We had a prisoner die of demon attack. Unfortunately Dean here had just been in an altercation with her earlier and we had to process a lot of evidence to confirm that he had nothing to do with the attack."

Both Winchesters snorted. "I kill 'em, I'm not stupid enough to summon them," was Dean's response.

"We know but we still had to go through the process. Now, could I get your expert opinions on the demon? We have the attack on tape." Grissom held up the video tape he was holding.

"You do? Cool!" Dean was all for watching the tape right now. John just smiled in pride at his son's response. He had raised one hell of a Hunter and that was both something he could be proud of and would feel eternal regret for.

Dean on the other hand was very happy that he would get to watch the tape. If anyone deserved to be killed by a demon it was Misty Baker.

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"Where's Sam?" John asked as they settled into the viewing room. The crime lab had a cool set up for watching video tape. Not only did it have comfortable chairs but it also had a large assortment of equipment that John had no clue as to what they used it for.

"He's over at the hospital. Don't worry Dad, he wasn't hurt." Dean hurried to explain to his father, "The bitch we're going to watch hurt a baby. Sam's watching over the kid now."

John nodded. Both of the boys had a real soft spot for kids and a serious paranoia where CPS was concerned. He wasn't surprised to hear that Sam was guarding the baby. In fact, he wouldn't be surprised to hear that one of his boys was considering taking the baby in and adopting it if that was an option. That might actually be possible now with his new job as a Watcher. While Slayer houses tended to be surrounded by the supernatural, it wasn't often a target unless the demon was really stupid.

Willow settled down in one of the chairs and asked for some popcorn and a drink to the amazement of the CSI's. When Greg explained that the tape was rather gruesome, Willow just gave him a condescending smile. "I'm a survivor of the battle of Sunnydale. There really isn't much that a demon can do that will make me toss my cookies. Say EWWW! really loud, yeah, but not toss my cookies."

Greg was impressed. The battle of Sunnydale was now a well known story, having been published on the Watcher's website. Anyone who had been there really wasn't going to be grossed out too badly by the tape. He passed out the requested items and started the tape.

It showed a cell block that held only a few sleeping prisoners, mostly drunks who were passed out. The exception was a woman pacing back and forth in an otherwise empty cell. Then a shadow obscured the camera lens for a moment before swirling into the shape of a man. "Hmmm," came from Willow, who was already running through her knowledge of demons, eliminating all of the fully corporeal ones.

The man shape stepped up to the cell door and simply stopped. The woman however, was blasted onto the back wall of the cell. "Is there any sound on this tape?" John asked as he watched the woman slide up the wall.

"No, but we can ask the uniforms what they heard," Grissom said. Just then on the tape two uniformed officers came running into the cell block. As this was the women's holding cells, both officers were female. Although neither of them fit into the butch profile, they were both very tall and well built. They too were slammed into the walls of the cells.

The man shape turned back from the officers and looked upwards at the woman he had now pinned to the ceiling. "Dad," Dean drew out starting to look a bit excited. "Is that what I think it is?"

John didn't answer, just leaning forward to try and catch every little detail. When the gash on the woman's abdomen opened and she started bleeding, John nodded. Then she burst into flames. "That's the one, Dean."


	9. Chapter 9

Catherine put a rush on the paternity test. Fortunately it didn't take as long as a detailed DNA test and she was able to get it done quickly. It confirmed what Sam had said. Both twins were the children of Dean Winchester. In her opinion that was a good thing. Even with demon hunting being the family business, it was obvious that this was a close knit family that truly cared for one another and that was just what the twins needed. She went to type up the report.

By the time that she had finished everything that was needed to make things official, the Winchesters, Willow Rosenburg, Captain Brass and Gil Grissom had left the building. As she was searching for them she found a large group of CSI's, both from day shift and from the graveyard shift, gathered in the break room talking about Willow Rosenburg and her investigative techniques.

"I'm serious! She went into the holding cells and found blood from the demon that we'd missed! We didn't even know it was blood!" Nick was saying.

"It was fantastic! She also found this smudge stuff that she said came from the demon and she asked to use our lab to identify it. She ran it through the wringer! And all of the tests she did were ones that we use all the time! The results came back freaky of course, but we are talking about a demon." Sarah jumped in.

"There is no way that a witch can be of use to a CSI investigation." That was the opinion of one of the day shifters. He was an Ecklie clone and wouldn't say yes to one of Grissom's people if they said the sky was blue.

"I don't know." This came from another day shifter. "It was a confirmed demon attack and it happened while the vic was in police custody. We really need to be able to identify what kind of demon killed her at the very least. I don't know about you, but I have no idea how to do that."

"The lab needs to hire a witch." Catherine said bluntly. "We are the Las Vegas Crime Lab people. We are the single best non federal crime lab in the country. Now that demons are public knowledge, we need to be able to identify them, and be able to run any test necessary to identify individual demons just like we do people. Other than hiring Miss Rosenburg, does any one have any ideas?"

"Ask her if she knows someone who'd be interested?" Greg asked.

"I know enough about the supernatural hunting community to know that if we hire someone it has to be someone checked out by the Watcher's Council. They run as close to a certification process as there is out there," was Warrick's opinion.

"Oh yeah! They run the websites that you can find real hunters at! The Watcher's Council vets them before they allow them to link a website so you know they're the real deal." Dominic gushed. "What? I keep track of the boards and everyone is saying how Wil-'O'-the-Wisp's sites can't be hacked. If you don't go through him, forget about it. You can't get linked up."

"Computer nerds," Nick whispered to Warrick. They both grinned over Dominic's enthusiasm.

"Ok, I'll talk to Grissom about getting a Watcher's Council ok'd witch on board." Catherine knew that just by saying that the Ecklie clones would be sure to go tattling to Conrad and he would do his best to steal Grissom's thunder for the idea. She wondered to herself what the ad would look like. 'Las Vegas Crime lab has employment opening for Witch, must practice white magic, have knowledge of demons and be Watcher's Council certified.'

She shook her head. "By the way does anyone know where Grissom is? I can't find him anywhere."

"They all went over to the hospital to interview the uniforms and to relieve Sam Winchester from guard duty on the twins. I don't know why he's guarding them, I mean they're out of danger now," Greg said.

"They may be out of danger now, but those are Dean Winchester's kids. We just ran the paternity test. No way Sam would leave his brother's kids alone in a hospital." That came from one of the DNA techs.

"That is enough! There will be no gossiping or spreading around of that news to anyone! That is privileged information that is part of a custody case. Dean Winchester does NOT know that he is a father. The only reason that Sam Winchester knows about it is because of the vision he had that led to the children's rescue. There will be no mention of any of that ever! Is that understood!" Catherine wasn't about to let a few loose lips sink the lab's boat. The Winchesters could sue the lab and bankrupt the city if they so chose to do so if these idiots said the wrong thing.

"Yes," "We get you," "Ok, Catherine," came from all around her.

"Well, that must be why Sam had the vision," Warrick said. "He told me that particular demon doesn't just kill the child's mother, sometimes it kills the entire family. It always kills the mother the same way, pin her to the ceiling, cut open her belly and set her on fire. If there isn't someone else to pull the rest of the family out, they all die. If the Winchesters hadn't been there, and gotten the twins out and if Sam wasn't standing guard over them right now, I'd bet those kids would be dead tonight."

It was a sobering realization. It was bad enough that the twins had been neglected and abused. For them to have killed before they were rescued wasn't something that anyone in the lab liked to think about.

"Ok everyone, back to work. Nick, would you like to come with me to make the notification?" Catherine offered. She knew that he had a soft spot for child cases just like she did. Plus he was the one who had found the boy. He'd want to see how the baby was doing.

"Thanks, Cath."

A/N: Credit goes to LadyFoxFire for the ad and idea for the LV Crime lab job opening! Thanks!


	10. Chapter 10

Nick and Catherine caught up with the Winchesters just outside of the infant pediatric ward. "Mr. Winchester?"

"You might as well call us by our first names, ma'am," John said as they both turned towards the CSI's. "Otherwise it's going to get a bit confusing around here." The smile on his face was so charming that Catherine knew instantly why Dean had gotten those offers he had mentioned before, and why John had gotten so high a place on the poll she would never admit to reading.

"Ok, I need to speak to Dean." She tried her best not to return the smile. Now was not the time to be flirting with the man who was about to learn he was a grandfather.

John and Nick watched as Catherine led Dean down the hall a short way. She spoke for a few minutes and then showed him some papers. At which point Dean, who was leaning against the wall, slowly slid down it. Instantly John was at his side and the look he shot Catherine was enough to turn her insides to ice. "What did you say to my son." John growled rather than asked.

"He's fine, he's just had a bit of a shock. The little girl he rescued," Catherine paused slightly to monitor Dean's condition. Did he need a doctor or something? "She's his daughter. Before she was killed, the mother claimed that the twins were Dean's and we've just gotten confirmation of that." She handed John the papers she had shown Dean. "That means, with this paperwork, he can take custody of them as soon as the doctors release them."

John dropped the papers on the floor so that he could look through them with one hand. His left hand was checking Dean's pulse. It was far too fast, although it was starting to slow down. The paperwork was all in order. Dean was now officially the father of two six month old twins, one boy and one girl, neither of which had names. So that was why the demon had gone after her.

"Dean, are you alright?" John asked. When he was in the service he had watched a buddy of his go through a similar shock. This time things would go better, for one thing the mother was out of the picture and good riddance since she had been the one to hurt his granddaughter.

Dean looked up and John could see that shock wasn't what was on his face. It was raw anger. "I slept with her thirteen months ago Dad. We had that Rawhead and Bloodybones, remember? They should only be four months, not six! She didn't give a shit about them. They were her babies and she didn't GIVE A SHIT!" he yelled and threw a punch at the wall. John pulled him into a hug. "They could have died, Dad" he sobbed into his father's shirt.

Catherine went over to Nick, "Let's go check out the babies and give them some privacy." Nick nodded. He couldn't imagine what Dean was going through and frankly didn't want to. Bad enough to have the protection fail during a one night stand, to find out about it under these circumstances was beyond horrifying.

They went into the ward and found Sam on his feet with his shotgun in his hands and pointed in the direction of the door. "What's going on?" he demanded.

"We just confirmed that the twins are your brother's children," Catherine said quietly. "We're giving him and your dad a little time to themselves right now."

"Dad's here? He was supposed to meet us at Stanford." Sam was worried. It wasn't like they'd called for help. The case was open and shut and Dean was innocent. He wondered what had gone wrong.

"Miss Rosenburg brought him through some kind of travel magic," Catherine said, shuddering at the memory.

Sam saw and tried to reassure her. "That isn't the normal way of doing things. It takes too much power from the caster. Willow is one of the very few magic users who can do it. And if she is doing it, then she's on Council business." That thought wasn't as reassuring to Sam as it was to Catherine. He knew that the Council tended to the heavy hitters and that meant that something serious was going down.

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Giles and Buffy were watching over the lounge, a large parlor/family type room where the Slayers who lived at the Slayer School relaxed, watched tv, and generally did teenaged girl type stuff. "I don't know what we're going to do with her Giles. She's just not a typical Slayer."

"As I recall YOU weren't a typical Slayer either Buffy," Giles said amused.

She glared at her Watcher. "You know what I mean! She's not the least bit aggressive, ok, unless you happen to be a demon, but I'm talking about putting herself forward. The only time she ever offers death threats is if one of the other Slayers tries to use her knitting needles as stakes. That's not normal." She paused and looked over at the corner where a tiny girl sat knitting by herself. "Slayers are by their very nature aggressive. We have to be. She's little Miss Suzie Homemaker."

"It is, different, I know. But Buffy, she's happy that way. She never shirks a class, her homework or patrol. She may not be very vocal about doing her job, but she does do it. I've taken her on patrol solo and so has everyone else, just like we do with all of the seventeen year olds. She'll do fine."

"She's timid around people Giles. It's only with demons that she does anything but fade into the background. How are we going to find a Watcher that won't plow right over her?" That of course was Buffy's real concern. A Slayer and her Watcher needed to be a team, if not; it was just one short step down to the path that the old Council had taken. "Or even worse, be so timid himself that he can't bring himself to push her when she needs it?"

"Willow has an idea. She thinks it would be a good idea to place her with a Hunting family. She's going to ask John Winchester if he and Dean would take on two Slayers." Giles watched his Slayer roll the idea around in her head.

Hunter Families were rare, most often a person became a Hunter because he, or more rarely she, had lost everything or something extremely important to the supernatural. Often those who still had something left either lost it as they started Hunting, or gave it up as a way of ensuring that whatever it was survived. Obsessions such as John's were common, although the duration was extremely rare.


	11. Chapter 11

Hannah Adams was barely five feet tall and weighed a hundred pounds only if she was soaking wet and had pockets full of change. She had won the dubious position as the smallest Slayer ever recorded. She was even smaller than Buffy. It didn't help that she had a very quiet personality and would rather be doing her projects in her room or off in a corner than be the center of attention.

Hannah watched as her roommates sat on the floor in front of her and worried over who their Watchers were going to be. Every Slayer at the school had her own bed of course, but they had to share rooms. There were four Slayers to a bedroom, five in her case because she was about to graduate. All three of her usual roommates were the same age she was, seventeen.

While she understood that for her roommates the reasons to worry were vast and varied depending upon both which one you were talking to and what day it was, she only had one concern. Would her Watcher try to make her give up her knitting?

As strange as it might have seemed to others knitting was her life. Before she was called, Hannah had plans for owning her own knitting shop. Now she was determined that she would fulfill her obligations to the world as a Slayer, but no one was going to make her give up her dream shop. With as many Slayers in the world as there was now, she could have her dream. All she needed to do was attend business school, save up her money, and survive. When she was done with school she was sure that she could get assigned to a minor area without a large amount of demon activity.

"I swear I'm going to," Jane reached over and grabbed one of Hannah's knitting needles, only to find Hannah's hand wrapped around her wrist. Jane was the newest Slayer to join the school and would be taking Hannah's place when Hannah moved out with her Watcher in a few days time.

"Word of advice, I don't like it when someone takes my needles." Hannah was very matter of fact, but her eyes were blazing. "It is not only rude, but these are wooden needles and as such they are very expensive. It took me a very long time to relearn how to knit with them after I was called and if you break one I will break you." The threat was mild, especially for a Slayer, they generally enjoyed making up interesting threats, but Jane was subdued by the look in Hannah's eyes and the crushing grip on her wrist.

Jane handed over the wooden knitting needle while the older girls laughed at her. "You can take her clothes, you can take her stakes, and most of the time you can walk right over her, but don't ever mess with her knitting or any of her other projects!" Janice said. "We were so lucky to get her for a roommate."

Hannah just sat back in her chair and continued her knitting. She needed to get herself under control and knitting was the only way to do that. It was her meditation and hobby at the same time. It also kept her closets filled in spite of how often it was raided by her roommates. She too was worried about who she would end up with as a Watcher. It was three days until her eighteenth birthday and her graduation from Slayer school.

Shari stuck her head in the door. "Hannah! Mr. Giles wants you in the office for your interview." Hannah put her knitting in her bag and left the room. The other girls all watched her with trepidation. The interview was a very big deal. Once the new Council had settled down in Cleveland and had gotten a handle on having so many Slayers, Giles and Buffy as the oldest Slayer/Watcher team had started setting up interviews with each Slayer before sending her off with her Watcher.

None of the younger girls knew what went on in the interview, but the rumors ran rampant with everything from learning who your Watcher was going to be to a secret ceremony where you had to swear your allegiance to the Powers. The truth of course, was more towards the middle of the two.

Hannah knocked on the door to the office and then let herself in. "Ah, Hannah, good. Let me see, now here we are," Giles shuffled around the papers on his desk. This wasn't the principal's office, (that was in the other building) but Hannah still had to fight down her butterflies. "Now sit down there. We have a lot to go over. I'm sorry we've left this until so late, but until now we haven't had a good candidate for a Watcher for you."

"You can relax," Buffy smiled. "I know what the girls say, but the truth of the matter is that the reason for the secrecy is more for your privacy than anything else. No matter what you say it won't go beyond these walls. No one can listen in and you already know that we won't say anything."

"Hannah do you have any plans for your life other than Slaying?" Giles gently asked.

Hannah actually looked at Giles in shock. "Yeah," she answered slowly.

Giles was surprised. Hannah had never said anything on the subject where he or any of the other adults could hear. "What are they?"

"I want to own a knitting shop. I need to go to business school and get a job in a shop so that I can learn the business. While I'm doing that I need to save up my money so that when the time comes I can get good inventory, rental space, etc. I'm still working on the lists of what I need to do and get. I also have to survive being a Slayer."

Giles and Buffy were both shocked. Neither one had expected Hannah to have a goal for her life, much less have lists. Growing bolder at their lack of reaction, Hannah continued, "I would also like to be assigned to a minor area. Not a hellmouth, someplace where I'd have enough to deal with to keep the Slayer inside me satisfied, but not so busy that I have to sacrifice my shop."

Buffy looked at Giles and smiled, "It looks like Willow had the right idea. Hannah, how would you like to be assigned to a Hunting Family? By that I mean have one of the Hunters be your Watcher?" She didn't mention which family because of the Winchester men's reputation among the young Slayers as the hottest thing around.

"That'd be great as long as they were based in a single area. I know that some of them travel a lot and that wouldn't be good." The look on her face said that she wouldn't be budged on that issue.

"Ok, what do you think about sharing the family, not your Watcher, but the family with another Slayer?" The question and answer session continued for some time.


	12. Chapter 12

It had taken what felt like ages, but was actually only hours for the Winchesters to get things worked out. Willow needed John and Dean in Cleveland in three days. That was long enough, even with the twins, for them to drive to Stanford and get Sam settled with little Mary Samantha and John Samuel (as Dean had insisted on naming them) in the Slayer house that Willow was setting up. Then John and Dean would fly to Cleveland to meet and then fly back with their two Slayers. Dean didn't like it, but John was very happy that he wouldn't have to travel by Rosenburg Express Service.

The only trouble was that the twins got car sick, repeatedly. John had prepared for this. As they were Dean's kids there was a chance that they would inherit the travel sickness that he had as a baby. John smiled to himself as he watched Sam clean out the back seat while he and Dean dealt with the much stinkier and disgusting mess the twins had made on themselves. It wasn't their fault, but it was amusing to watch his son take care of the same mess that he had given him more than twenty years ago.

"It isn't funny, Dad!" Dean growled as he carefully wiped vomit away from Mary's casts. "That stink is never gonna come out!

"Don't worry sweetheart, Daddy's not mad at you. Your grandpa on the other hand is being a jerk."

"No, it's just that you did the same thing to me when you were a baby. And the stink will come out, it did before," John said as he wiped up his namesake. "Thank god for rest stops. I hated to do this in a gas station restroom." He put down the washcloth he was using and picked up another one from the mega pack he'd bought. He had known that baby wipes would be useless in this situation. They had the twins laid out on a picnic table with their car seats down on the ground. "Now that you've got the vomit off, rinse with a baby wipe and then check her diaper. It'll be full and most likely a worse mess than the vomit."

Dean groaned, knowing that his dad was right. With all of the stress that they had been through there was no doubt that a long car trip wasn't good for a mess free trip. He gingerly opened the diaper only to slam it shut. "Oh God!"

John laughed and handed him a clean washcloth. By that time Sam had finished with the backseat and had started on the car seats. All three men worked quickly, although there was much gagging on Dean's part as he hadn't yet caught on to the trick of holding his breath just yet. When the twins were clean, had clean diapers, clothes and car seats, John handed Dean a bottle of clear fluid. "This is what you give them when they get sick like this. It's basically an infant version of a sport drink. It puts back what they lost when they got sick and it doesn't hurt their stomachs."

This was what made all that hassle worth it. Sitting down with a baby and giving them a bottle and cuddle time, there was nothing like it in the world. When Sam asked if he was going to get a turn, Dean looked at him. "Do you think for one minute I'm going to take these two on a plane? You're going to have them all to yourself little brother, heck you have had them all to yourself while I was killing time with the cops. Wait your turn."

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Jordan Maxwell was nervous. She and Hannah Adams were about to turn eighteen. By odd chance they both had the same birthday and so were going to graduate on the same day. Their families would be arriving soon to show their support and to find out where their little girls would now be living and working.

As the only girl in a large family Jordan had grown up a tomboy. Fortunately she hadn't been the oldest, nor was she the youngest. It made a difference in the way her parents and brothers had treated her. Their large farm had been too busy for them to coddle her and she had grown up running, fighting, playing and doing the same chores as the boys.

Today would be the first time her family had left their home state of Missouri. The farm had been left in the care of their neighbors and they were traveling here to see her graduate. It wouldn't surprise her if half the town had tried to finagle a way to join them. When she had been called and had traveled to the Slayer school it had been a scandal that her parents would send her away to a boarding school.

Now that the truth was known, she was the town's pride and joy. She hoped that Miss Lizzy would be able to make the trip. Miss Lizzy was the town's librarian and was the one person who knew everything about everybody for as far back as anyone could remember. Although she was eighty if she was a day, no one had the nerve to mention the word retirement to her. She was Jordan's favorite person.

Hannah peered around the door to the room where Jordan was pacing. She didn't know what Jordan's problem was, everyone had heard all about her family. Jordan had enough pictures on her walls to decorate an entire house and she had a ton of stories to go with them, unlike Hannah.

Hannah's family wasn't nearly so nice. Her father was a wealthy business man and worked hard to stay that way. Her mother was a busy socialite. There wasn't a single day that Hannah could remember that she had seen both of her parents together. She knew that it was because she had been called as a Slayer before her coming out party, but still, it made her stomach clench with the thought that she might see them both today. Or even worse, that she might not see them at all.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Gordon, had been her nanny and had been kept on as she had saved the family from an embarrassing disaster at one of the society parties her parents had been hosting. It was from Mrs. Gordon that she had learned how to knit. Mrs. Gordon's insistence that it was a very ladylike activity was the reason Hannah had been allowed to continue. As long as Hannah learned her other lessons in becoming a socialite, her mother had no objections to her learning domestic skills as well.

Hannah had been extremely grateful for those lessons when she had moved to the Slayer school. All of the Slayers had chores and were expected to be able to do them. Those chores included such things as; laundry, especially learning how to take care of their patrol clothes, scrubbing floors, washing dishes, basic cooking, making beds, basically in general the staff made sure that the new Slayers would be able to take care of themselves when they went to live on their own. Hannah had been glad that she hadn't been too far behind the other girls on learning how to do that. It would have been so horribly embarrassing to admit she didn't know how.

"Jordan? They're coming up the driveway now," she called quietly.


	13. Chapter 13

Jessica Moore was tired, extremely tired. She had flown clear across the country in a single day and now all she wanted was her dorm assignment, a made bed and sleep. Unfortunately it looked like those would be delayed. While a familiar tall and handsome boyfriend was waiting for her outside of the security gates, Sam was accompanied by two car seats. One held a sleeping baby while the other was empty. That was because Sam was holding a blanket wrapped bundle in his arms. Those had better not be his kids.

"Something you want to tell me Sam?" she asked as she walked up to him. She knew she was being snippy, but she couldn't help it. She was tired and her boyfriend had two babies with him. She knew that none of their friends had twins and his father and brother didn't have twins either. Where did they come from?

Quickly Sam filled her in on the situation and Jess was filled with horror. "I hope she was killed slowly and died in a lot of pain." She reached down and picked up the sleeping baby.

"Actually, I don't," Sam said as he carried the little girl over to a baggage cart. "My mother was killed by the same demon and as angry at her as I am for what she did to Johnny and Mary; I have to pray that she didn't feel much of anything and that it was quick. Not for her sake, but for my mom's."

That was something that Jess could understand. "Well, at least they're safe with us now. Don't worry about my bags. I only have my carry on; most of my stuff is stored over at Gina's. You take Mary and I'll take Johnny." Her news could wait until things settled down a bit.

It was probably better this way. She'd only have to explain once that she had been taking classes and courses over the summer to learn more about what a Hunter's life was like. She had even managed to get a talk with Lisa Monroe, the New York Senior Slayer about what it was like to live and work with a Seer.

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Hannah came over and tugged gently on the hem of Jordan's dress. The Council tried to make this a special day for the graduating Slayers, but her parents possibly coming had Hannah freaked. She knew that Jordan rarely wore dresses, but she was doing very well in the dress that Hannah had made for her. Ribbon dresses were beautiful and special enough to pass inspection on a day like today.

They were also flexible and stretchable enough to fight in if necessary. That was one lesson that had been hammered home. If you couldn't fight in them, your clothes were very likely to cause your death. A Slayer needed to be able to fight at any time, day or night. It was one of the many reasons Hannah didn't want to live and work on a hellmouth.

"Thanks for making me this dress," Jordan whispered.

"If my parents show up and they say something, please don't take it personally," Hannah whispered back. "They are total snobs. I don't want them to ruin this day for you."

"What about you?" Jordan asked puzzled.

"Almost all of the people here aren't in their social class. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I just don't want them causing problems. If we can get through today without a riot, I'll be happy," Hannah said. "Shari did a good job on your hair. And as long as you take half strides you'll do fine with the dress. You didn't even notice but you weren't taking those 'run at the vampire' strides of yours when you were pacing."

Jordan looked down at her feet in shock, "I wasn't?" Hannah shook her head.

"Your families are here girls; would you allow me to escort you down?" Xander asked as he stepped in and offered his arms. Both of the young Slayers giggled. Xander was easily the most crushed on guy around the campus. It was wonderful for him to offer to be their escort.

The large grassy area behind the school dorms was covered in people, decorations, chairs and tables. It was the place where graduations and other parties took place. Grace Adams looked around at the other students and inwardly winced at the company her daughter had been keeping for the past three years. She knew that it was important for Hannah to learn to use her Slayer abilities wisely and that there had been a great deal of information that she had needed to learn. It was just that Grace had wished it had been possible for Hannah to have either learned while she was at home or at least have been able to stick to her own kind of people while she was learning.

Gordon Adams had been thinking long and hard about his little girl while preparing for her graduation. Hannah had always been an extremely smart girl and he had hopes that she would follow him into the family business one day. Now the fact that she had been called as a Slayer had destroyed that dream. Hannah would never live long enough to take over the business from him, most likely she wouldn't even live to see her 25th birthday. The only thing he could do was to make sure that she married and had at least one child before she died as it wasn't possible for either he or Grace to have a second child.

That was why he hadn't protested when she was sent to the Slayer School. It was an all girl's school and he was sure that the young man he had selected to be Hannah's husband would be able to sweep her off of her feet and get everything taken care of quickly. A few weeks back in New York and Grace could start planning the wedding. It never occurred to him that Hannah might have plans of her own.

Neither Mrs. nor Mr. Adams noticed the two men dressed in jeans, beat up shirts, and leather jackets standing in the background, holding punch glasses and eating cookies. John and Dean Winchester had gotten off of the plane and had gone directly to the Slayer School to pick up their Slayers. They hadn't expected to be part of a party. The crowd that made up the graduation party was filled with everything from the required younger Slayers to several granny types that had to be family members to a small and very richly dressed group that looked severely out of place. "What do you want to bet that one of our Slayers belongs to that bunch?" John whispered to Dean.

"Sucker bet. They did say that Hannah came from a wealthy background and that she had difficulties with being a Slayer," was Dean's reply.

"I'm glad that you're getting her. I'm going to have a hard enough time holding Jordan back. Giles said that she needs a broader range of experiences than she could get while she was here on the hellmouth."

Dean snorted, "Why does it not surprise me that the doorway to hell is in downtown Cleveland?" John smiled and continued to drink his punch. It was rather good, especially considering that he knew Buffy Summers had been threatening to strangle their cook if he made one more reference to a comic book character the entire day. He thought that Andrew would be pouting so much that he'd ruin the food even more than usual.


	14. Chapter 14

Jack and Hazel Maxwell looked over the school grounds with pride. Their only little girl was about to graduate from this school; a school where she had learned how to fight the darkness and to protect the innocent. They knew that she had a hard life ahead of her, but they had to be pragmatic about that; she would have had that kind of life anyway.

Being a small town farmer's daughter wasn't easy. Although it was a way of life that they loved neither of them were ignorant as to the hardships. There was never enough money for everything that was needed, much less the things that their kids had wanted. Travel for more than a few days wasn't an option, and then they had to make sure that the livestock were cared for by someone knowledgeable. It wasn't like they just had cats and dogs. College, unless on a scholarship program, wasn't an option either, but Jordan would have that opportunity if she wanted it.

The Watcher's Council had a standing policy of sending any Slayer to college if she wanted, no matter how expensive a school. If she wanted, Jordan could go to Harvard, or Oxford, or any other Ivy League school and she wouldn't be doing it as a charity scholar either. She'd be going as a Slayer, a heroine.

Xander stepped out the double doors and onto the cement slab that served as combination patio/back porch to the dormitory. As soon as he appeared with both girls on his arms, everyone settled down and took seats so that they could see what was happening.

With broad smiles on their faces Giles and Buffy went to stand to one side of the trio. Excited murmurs ran around through out the crowd and several bets were placed among the staff and younger Slayers as to the identity of the new Watchers.

"I know that everyone just wants to know who Jordan and Hannah's Watchers are and where they're going to be assigned but Giles and I do have a couple of little speeches to give. So bear with us and we'll be as quick as we can," Buffy said to the crowd. She was dressed up with her hair piled onto her head, a far cry from her normal look around the school of training gear or secretary chic.

"Girls, you've made it this far. You have survived three years on a hellmouth. Although it may not seem like it because you have had so much backup with all of us here, we do know just how much of an accomplishment that is. You have faced apocalypse after apocalypse, both mini and major. You have both literally looked straight into hell and survived. Now you are going to go and take care of things in other places. All that we ask is that you don't forget us, your sisters. If you need us, we'll be there. No questions asked, well, probably a lot of questions but they'll be about what do you want us to kill." That brought a lot laughs from the audience and a smile to Jordan and Hannah's faces.

Buffy looked over at Giles and handed over the virtual spotlight. "It is unusual for two Slayers to have been born on the same day," Giles began. "But that is the situation we have here. Jordan, today you turn eighteen. That is an accomplishment as Buffy has said. As you have plans to attend college, we have arranged for you to attend Stanford University. You will be responsible for the safety of not only those who live in Palo Alto, but you will also take on a variety of jobs to be determined by your Watcher, John Winchester."

Giles announcement was John's que to walk up and shake Jordan's hand. Jordan herself was in shock at this turn of events. She knew that she had agreed to have a Watcher from a Hunting family, but the Winchesters? They were some of the best! "It's good to meet you Jordan."

"It's good to meet you too sir," Jordan said breathlessly. She couldn't help but steal a quick glance at her roommates who sat with their mouths open in shock. If Xander was the most crushed on guy on campus, the Winchesters were the most crushed on men off of campus.

John took her from Xander and said, "Now why don't you introduce me to your family." That woke Jordan up from her shock and she dragged him gently over to where her family was sitting.

With smiles on their faces, Buffy and Giles waited for the shocked and excited whispers to die down. They had a second Slayer to settle today as well. After a few moments people seemed to remember that Hannah was waiting. "Thank you," Giles said, giving the Slayers who had been squealing a stern glance.

"Now, Hannah. Today is also your eighteenth birthday and it is time for you to learn your assignment. One would think that Jordan has all of the backup she could possibly require in such a quiet college town. However, we do not believe in sending any Slayer out on her own if at all possible. That is why your Watcher is Dean Winchester. With two Slayers posted to the same town, both of you will be able to accomplish a great deal more than you will alone."

Hannah looked up at Dean in shock as they shook hands. She was used to having to look up at people. She was only five feet tall, but she really hadn't expected to get a Hunting family full of giants, both physically and with their reputation. She was speechless and in shock.

"Hello Hannah." Dean was used to this reaction. If he didn't get stares and whispers he got this look of shocked hero worship. It was so annoying to be a celebrity. It wasn't as if he'd tried to become famous. He had just been doing his job! Well, Hannah would come out of it soon enough. If not now, then definitely by the time they got Stanford. One plane trip with him would be all it took. It would be nice to be able to turn his weakness into an asset for once.

Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell, their sons and everyone from their small hometown had crowded around John and Jordan and were busy introducing themselves and congratulating Jordan. Mr. and Mrs. Adams, however, weren't so enthusiastic. "They can't be serious, Gordon. Look at him; he looks like he just jumped off a freight train!" Grace furiously whispered to her husband.


	15. Chapter 15

Dean knew girls. He had caught the look on Hannah's face the moment her mother had begun speaking and knew that Hannah did not share her mother's view of the world. The only reason he had heard what her mother had said was that he was used to listening for the slightest sound. For Hannah with her Slayer hearing it must have been as loud as a shout and just as embarrassing as if her mother had.

He went and stood directly in front of Hannah's mother and got right in her face, the impulse to protect his Slayer almost as strong as the need to protect his little brother already. "If you've got something to say to me you do it to my face, ma'am," he said as quietly and politely as he could.

"Not that I really care what you think of me, but you really should be a little more considerate of your daughter. Hannah has done something really important. She graduated from Slayer School. That means that she survived three years as a Slayer. And all you can do is come and embarrass her in front of her sister Slayers and the people she has to work with?

"I mean, does it really matter what I wear? Shouldn't you be more concerned about what's in my head and what I'm capable of doing? I'm your daughter's Watcher. My job is to make sure that she lives for as long as possible and kills everything that tries to kill her. You didn't even think about asking what my qualifications are." Dean knew that the best way to chew out a society bitch like this was to be as polite as possible. It was the best way to show up her bad manners. That was what was keeping him from cussing her out as only the son of a marine could.

"I know who you are Mr. Winchester," Grace said but Dean interrupted her.

"Just where did you get your information ma'am? That stupid poll written by brain dead Barbies? Or the article by the paparazzi that I almost knifed to death when he tried to take a picture of me naked in the shower?" That little piece of information caused a buzz among the young Slayers, who groaned that the photographer hadn't gotten the picture.

"Cause I know for sure that you didn't ask anyone who really mattered. Like the any of the people who chose me for this job because I have ten years field experience and nearly ten years of learning what I need to know to do the job." Dean was breathing fire at this point. He was the one charged with keeping her daughter alive and the only thing she could think about was his clothes?

"It's not going to make a difference," Mr. Adams said quietly. "Hannah is practically dead already. She's under a death sentence. She might live another year. She certainly won't live much longer than that. She needs to come home so we have some chance of,"

"I'm not under a death sentence." Everyone looked at Hannah. She had come up quietly behind Dean. She took a deep breath and continued without looking at anyone. "I'm not going to live on a hellmouth. I'm going to Stanford University and I'm going to be a business major. I'm going to own my own business." She looked up and pinned her parents with a glare. "I am not going to die before that happens. I will probably die before I hit forty, but I'm not going to just lie down and wait for it to happen. They don't teach that here. The first rule of Slaying is 'Stay Alive' and I intend to do just that."

Buffy stood behind Hannah with her hands on Hannah's shoulders and smiled at her in pride. She remembered the lectures she had given over the years, usually right before a battle, and it always started with rule number one, Stay Alive. She had first articulated that rule to Faith when the vampire who had killed her first Watcher had followed her to Sunnydale. It hadn't been the last time she'd said those words, but Hannah had taken them to heart. She had based her decisions on that rule and her dreams, the best combination of all. She was also proud of Hannah's standing up to her parents. For such a shy girl, it was a huge step forward.

"The Winchesters are some of the best Hunters in the United States, some say the world but I think that's pushing it a bit," Buffy said to Hannah's parents and the group they had brought with them. "Hannah has chosen not to be a front line Slayer. Because we have so many Slayers now she has that choice. She can't stop being a Slayer and yes, eventually it will kill her.

"But unlike when I was called, Hannah has a chance at a real future and she's grabbing it with both hands. That's why we asked John and Dean to become Watchers. With their help she can do anything she wants to do, own her business that she has been planning for years now, get married and have a family, either her own children or through adoption, she can do anything she wants."

"Except drive," Hannah muttered.

Buffy glanced at her and grinned. "Well, except drive a car. We Slayers tend to fall into two categories behind the wheel. Either we're too busy watching for vampires and other demons or we're so focused on the road that we cause accidents because no one else can keep up with our reflexes."

"I hope you're the focused type," Dean said. "Because there's a chance you might end up behind the wheel with us. Depends on who's hurt and how bad." As long as she kept the Impala in one piece he'd be happy with that.

"Hannah, what kind of business are you planning on starting?" Mrs. Kelly asked trying to change the subject without insulting anyone.

"I plan to own an upscale boutique, ma'am. Thank you for coming to my graduation and birthday party. It was very kind of you to bring Jeremy." This kind of politeness had been drilled into Hannah from the time she was allowed out of her nursery. She knew the real reason that Mrs. Kelly and her son had been invited but it wouldn't be polite to say so.

"Not at all my dear," the routine politeness wasn't all that routine on Mrs. Kelly's part. "We were so pleased to hear that someone we knew had been called as a Slayer. It is a huge responsibility. We're very proud of you. Amber wished she could have come but she's getting settled in at Oxford in England. She's planning on becoming a Watcher someday. Your calling inspired her." Mrs. Kelly deftly took Hannah's arm and escorted her off towards the food tables where two enormous birthday cakes were being lit.

"I'm glad that Amber made it in. She was worried that her grades might not have been good enough. I tried to tell her that she couldn't get any better than straight A's, but that's Amber, always worried she isn't good enough." Hannah was pleased that her best friend from her childhood in New York had managed to achieve this first step towards her dream.


	16. Chapter 16

Teenaged girls are not subtle. In fact they are more than obvious and it was never so apparent to the Adams' than the day of Hannah's graduation. Being bombarded with loud, meant to be overheard conversations of just how lucky Hannah was to be getting not only Dean Winchester for her Watcher, but to be able to work with his family as well, would have been even more offensive if Gordon Adams hadn't known exactly why they were doing it.

They weren't just attacking Grace's choice of words; they were defending Hannah and the Watcher's Council's decision to make these men Watchers. It got very old, very quickly but Gordon couldn't blame them, they were trying to not make a scene by confronting them and as no one from the school came to quietly chide them for it, he could only assume that the staff agreed with them.

Hannah wanted to own her own business? While he had entertained plans for her to learn and take over his business for years before she had been called, it never occurred to him that she'd want to start her own business. An upscale boutique was a good choice for her. She knew the clientele, she knew the fashions and how quickly they could change from a customer's point of view, she knew how people should be treated, and he nodded to himself. She should do very well at this, if she could live long enough, she had his business sense after all.

If he only believed that she would make it longer than a single year on her own he would have supported her, given her a start up loan or something. As it was he didn't believe that she was going to survive and he couldn't agree to her wasting what was left of her life in pursuing dreams that she would never be able to achieve. Gregory Haize went to Stanford, maybe he could ask him to look in on Hannah. Deep into yet another plan to marry off his only daughter before her death, Gordon settled down in his chair and watched her open her presents.

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Sam and Jess got more than a few strange looks from their friends when they went down to the bookstore to get their class text books. They had both of the twins with them, Mary in a large antique baby carriage, and Johnny in a snugglie carried by Sam. It wasn't that they were trying to hide Mary's casts; they knew the news would get out. It wasn't like they'd put Mary into the casts, her psycho mother who had.

No, not psycho, she hadn't been that. What was the term the shrinks used to describe someone like her? Sam couldn't remember, but he did remember the symptoms. No one else was real to people like that. Everyone else in the world was just a paper cut out of a person and not a real living, thinking, and most importantly feeling human being. The only person who was real to the person who had the disorder was that person.

Sam shook his head as he reached for the book above Jess' head where she couldn't reach. It didn't matter now, she was dead and at least her death had provided them with some answers to the mystery of what had killed his mother. "SAM! JESS! HI!" Sam flinched at the loud voice yelling at them from across the room. 'Please don't let her wake up the babies!' he pleaded with himself, knowing that it was a fruitless endeavor.

Right on cue both babies began to whimper. "Jess, go take the books up, you've got the money. I'll take the twins next door and give them bottles and a change. We might as well ask Karen to join us." Jessica smiled at him and picked up the stack of books she had been leaning against the twins' carriage. After passing the handle to Sam, she reached up and gave both him and Johnny a kiss before walking over to where Karen was wildly waving at her.

It was nearly impossible to maneuver the baby carriage out of the book store with all of the students inside, but Sam was a Winchester and a bunch of college students had never scared him. If they had all been dead, it would have been another story, he admitted to himself, but these were all alive and both his height and the babies ensured that he was given the right of way, especially as he was headed outside. He made it to the coffee shop next door without further incident and was able to change both of the twins in the bathroom. He picked out a booth that had a view of all the exits and sat trying to give both of the babies their bottles while he waited for Jess and Karen.

The operative word turned out to be tried. It seemed that neither one of the twins wanted just a bottle. They wanted to be held. How Sam knew this, he wasn't certain. Perhaps one of the twins was tapping into his psychic friends' network as Dean put it? Or maybe he just knew that after three days of being on the road with them that they never really settled down without a cuddle? Either way, it meant that he was getting a lot of looks from the other customers because of his fussy niece and nephew.

It was Greg who rescued him. "Hey Sam, what's this I hear about you suddenly becoming the part of the baby brigade? Is this why you didn't move into the apartment like we had planned?" Greg swiftly plucked up Johnny and settled him on his lap, not giving Sam a chance to answer.

"That's my new nephew, Johnny. This is his sister, Mary and yes, they are named after my parents. Dean insisted on that." Sam gently picked up the fussing Mary and carefully gave her the bottle. Now that she was in his arms she settled down nicely. Johnny wasn't doing the same for Greg and Sam sighed. 'Please don't tell me that this means he'll only eat for one of us!' He went on to explain the events of the last week.

"So now Dean and Dad have gone to get their Slayers and I've sort of moved into the Slayer house with them. I mean, really, someone has to look after these guys." Sam ignored the looks he was getting from Greg and the fussing Johnny who had finally consented to drink his bottle, but not without a lot of protests. Jessica and Karen joined them at the booth and the moment Johnny saw them he was all coos and smiles for the girls. Greg looked on in disgust as Karen swooped Johnny out of his arms and Sam just shook his head. There was no doubt, if there ever had been, that this was Dean's son.


	17. Chapter 17

Sam wasn't sure if he was mad or grateful that Karen was the biggest gossip on campus. On the one hand, she made sure that everyone knew that Dean had rescued Mary from her and her brother's abusive mother. But on the other hand, if just one more well meaning person came up and told him what to do with the twins he was going to forget the family rule about not Hunting humans. They had enough things to deal with, they didn't need all this oh so 'helpful' advice.

Dad and Dean had made it safely back to the Slayer house with only two spots of trouble on the way. Jordan had spotted a vampire in Cleveland on their way to get a taxi and Hannah had forced Dean to take her to a yarn shop during their layover in Kansas City. Why they had a layover in Kansas City wasn't something that Sam had managed to understand during Dean's rant, but anyway, they had gone to this knitting shop and had found that one of the clerks, unknown to anyone else, was draining the life-force of the shop's customers. It turned out the clerk was a demon and Hannah killed it fairly easily, although not without buying the entire shop's inventory as she had trashed quite a bit of yarn in the process.

Hannah hadn't been worried about the cost. Her allowance from her trust fund had been sitting for three years while she was in the Slayer school and there would be more than enough to cover the cost. She was more concerned about the effects of demon blood on the yarn and hadn't wanted any innocent parties to come to harm because she had slayed something in the shop. The proprietor was more than willing to ship everything to the Slayer house, so now they had a huge amount of yarn splattered with demon blood to deal with. Sam just hoped that their basement laundry room could handle the overload.

And that was without mentioning enrolling two Slayers into college, setting up patrol routes, consulting with the police, getting weapons permits for all of them for the more exotic weaponry that was standard equipment in a Slayer's arsenal, and above all else, actually moving said Slayers into the Slayer house which now was also home to a set of six month old twin babies. If Johnny hadn't been as big a flirt as his dad, Sam didn't think he'd be able to handle it. The baby Winchester's charm worked wonders on potentially stuffy bureaucrats.

At any rate, things had settled down by the time classes started. The Slayer House was a former sorority house as that was the only place large enough to accommodate them all. Rather than simply removing the sorority sign, it had been replaced by a sign announcing that fact. John thought it was a bad idea, but the Council had overruled him. As they had more experience with this sort of thing, John was forced to back down, but he still grumbled every time he saw the sign.

Everyone had their own rooms, with the exception of the twins, who shared. Dean wasn't prepared to make them leave each other's company for any length of time, knowing how traumatic that would be for them. The house also had a large backyard with an archery range, a basement with a firing range (complete with workshop for everything from making gun modifications to making ammunition), a library for demonic and monster research (homework was generally done at the kitchen table) and a large weight/workout room. In short, it was a mini version of the Slayer School.

On their first day of classes both Jordan and Hannah were grateful for that. Having something to fall back on was a welcome bit of stability. Their classes and patrol schedules were posted in the library, the family room and the dining room. John had given them both cell phones and made sure that they both knew which number belonged to which Winchester along with their breakfast. Sam had made sure that they all had school supplies and their books for their classes and Dean had walked all three of them over to the campus before going off to the twins' doctor's appointment. Not however, without telling Hannah one more time to use her cell if she needed anything.

None of them had any classes together, so they were all on their own. By the end of the first day Jordan was ready to do anything that would get her into at least one class with Sam or Hannah. While she had been stared at before, she had never been the sole focus of those stares. Nor was she used to the whispering following her wherever she went.

The Slayer School was just that, a school for Slayers. If the student wasn't a Slayer, then she wasn't welcome. Oh, there had been the occasional little sister who had to come with or the reverse, but for the most part Jordan had been surrounded by Slayers and similar people for the last three years. Now, aside from Hannah, she was on her own and surrounded by people who had never seen a Slayer before.

She didn't know if they thought she was going to jump up and kill something in front of them or what but not being able to get away from being the focus of such intense scrutiny was almost unbearable. It was a good thing she only had three classes. It had taken all of the meditation and research skills that she had learned to keep her mind focused on the teachers instead of the whispers and jostling around her.

She knew that if she were anyone else, it wouldn't be this bad. It wasn't only that everyone kept glancing at her trying not to get caught; it was that at any given time she could hear them whisper about her. Not that everyone was talking about her all the time, but enough of them were talking about her at any one time that she wasn't getting a break. And they were saying the dumbest stuff. Like wondering whether or not she had been in LA last spring. Of course she had been in LA! Every Slayer who could get there had been! Duh! Slayers couldn't walk away from a major apocalypse!

There were the ones that she supposed were normal, boys wondering what it would be like to 'have' her for a girlfriend, or at least a one night stand, like she was really ready for that! One group of girls were wondering where she got her clothes and was the reason she dressed so badly because she had to fight demons all the time?

It wasn't her fault that denim and cotton were easier to wash demon guts out of, she thought angrily to herself. Becoming a Slayer didn't make someone rich. The Council had covered her other expenses while she was at Slayer School, but clothes were provided for by her family. Her parents hadn't been able to afford anything fashionable for her to wear, she had to make do with what she had always had, the clothes of a farm girl. As it was, they had still sent her better clothes than what they were wearing themselves.

It was the thoughts of her family's sacrifices for her that finally calmed her down. She would make them proud of her. She was the first person, the first girl, in the family to go to college and she wasn't going to walk away without a degree they could be proud of. No matter how the other students treated her.


	18. Chapter 18

Being her parent's daughter, Hannah had gotten used to stares and whispers early on in her life. She was less sure about how to reassure her demon (neutral) teacher that she wasn't going to slay him on the spot rather than sit down and learn like any other freshman student. Then she had thought to ask if his clan was Tool'rak and did he know Freeshhikal?

Free had been one of the teachers at the Slayer School one year and she had learned a lot about neutral demons in that class. When her teacher had admitted to being Free's cousin she had asked him to pass on a message about how much she had enjoyed it's class. The relief on his face had been all the reassurance she had needed. She had handled the situation correctly.

Now, if she could only handle the yarn situation correctly. She had called Andrew over at the Slayer School and had asked him to e-mail her a list of laundry treatments for removal of the specific type of demon blood from any and all fabrics that he knew of. Anything that his list didn't cover she was going to have to burn. She hated the thought of burning the yarn, especially the cashmere, angora or alpaca wools but she had no choice, the yarn was contaminated and there was no telling what would happen if it wasn't treated properly before being used. She didn't want a repeat of the last time.

As Hannah was pouring over the paper printout of the laundry treatments she was startled by Dean bringing a crying Mary to her and after taking the list out of her hands, he gently placed Mary in her arms. "She doesn't want anyone but you." Hannah couldn't imagine why but Dean was right, the baby settled down and smiled at her, trying to wave her fingers.

"BUT, but the laundry!" she tried to protest. Her protest fell on deaf ears (almost literally, Mary had been crying for fifteen minutes) as Dean went to get Mary's bottle. Johnny was already firmly entrenched in Jordan's arms. Dean came back with the bottle only to have Mary refuse it. Every time he or Hannah tried to place it in her mouth she either spit it out or turned her head so they couldn't put the nipple in. It wasn't until Mary's fingers finally got a hold of Hannah's sweater and they heard her giggle that they finally figured out what was going on with the baby. "Why is she laughing?"

Dean just hung his head. "She wants to play with your sweater," he sighed. "Sam always did like to play with weird stuff when he was little."

"Playing with yarn is not weird!" Hannah said, standing up for Mary. Dean smiled. He had learned that lesson early on. Hannah was very attached to her knitting stuff and she had made the sweater. As long as she was standing up for his kid though, he wasn't going to argue with her. "If you go up to my room there is a see through box with pink yarn in it. Bring it here and we'll see if she would like to play with the skeins. That way I can get back to cleaning that yarn downstairs and she won't be screaming for my sweater."

Dean bowed to the inevitable and ran upstairs and got the box of yarn. He assumed that the reason Hannah wanted this particular box was because it contained the same kind of yarn that her sweater was made of. Soon Mary was giggling as she explored the various yarns that Hannah ended up giving her one at a time. Because she had casts on both arms and both legs there wasn't a lot that Mary could do in the way of playing. Between the two of them, Dean and Hannah soon learned when she wanted to bring the yarn to her face or to try and throw it or any one of the hundred and one small things that made up play time for such a small baby.

Hannah never did get to the laundry that night. After playtime with Mary came time for patrol, and this time Jess joined them. Sam was home with the twins while manning the phones and computer and John and Jordan were off on their own patrol. John also wanted him to see if he could find them a nice, simple haunting for the girls first run at something that wasn't a demon. It wouldn't do not to teach the girls their specialty now would it?

The fact that Jess had gone so far as to research what their lives were like and tried to find out if she could at least live with it blew Dean's mind. He had very little experience with long term girlfriends, as in almost none, but what little he did have had always shown him that there was no way they would give up their plans for his type of life. Jessica had not only talked to people who were Hunters of one sort or another, she had started studying on her own the things she knew she would need to know, fighting, Latin, that sort of thing.

He watched her more than he did Hannah as they followed her into one of the local parks. He wasn't shirking his duty to Hannah, right now she was out playing bait and he had one ear out for her. But he was really curious about why Jess was trying to get this involved with their work. Finally he couldn't take it any more. "So why are you doing this?" he asked bluntly.

Jess had been wondering when someone would ask her. John hadn't said anything, just nodded when she had explained what she had done over her summer. Sam had just stared at her and then hugged her. Dean had looked like she'd grown a second head and the girls hadn't reacted anymore than John had. She'd really expected a bigger fuss. "Sam is important to me and this is part of his life. Even if he really didn't want it, his being a Seer pretty much means that he's going to be involved whether he wants to be or not. I had to find out if I could handle being part of your family. If I can't I need to know now, I don't want to hurt him later."

That was something that Dean could understand, putting Sam first had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember. He just wished he could find a girl like Jess for himself and his kids. A shout ahead of them had them running before he could finish the though. Hannah needed reinforcements, it was time to get to work.


	19. Chapter 19

Dean didn't know why Hannah was taking a gymnastic class, but her classes were her business, not his. He just made sure that she had time to go to class and do her homework on top of her Slaying. This was a fairly quiet town, so that wasn't hard. He stood in the doorway to the gym and watched as two different classes were being held, one was Hannah's gymnastic class and the other was a martial arts class of some sort.

"Hannah, you'd be on the team without even halfway trying. You're a natural at this!" The man standing over Hannah as she packed her gym bag was pleading with her.

"It isn't fair for her to compete against normal girls," Dean said as he came over to stand behind her. "Hannah is a Slayer. Competing is out of the question."

"Who are you?" the man demanded.

"I'm her Watcher," Dean said calmly.

"I'm taking the class as part of my Slayer training, Mr. Ellis," Hannah said interrupting what was sure to be a testosterone showdown. "I need it for the flexibility training. I'm the smallest Slayer on record and incorporating gymnastics into my fighting skills helps to even up the odds. I learned that from Miss Summers." Buffy Summers was famous as the oldest and senior Slayer. Her size was always a surprise to those who met her face to face as she was only an inch taller than Hannah.

"You need every advantage you can get," Dean admitted. He had of course seen her fight and had trained with her, but if taking this class gave her even the slightest bit of advantage in a combat situation, then he was all for it.

"There is no way being in that pansy class can help. What you need is a real hard core fighting class," the braggart that spoke was the teacher from the martial arts class that was ending on the other side of the gym.

Dean had already assessed the so called 'hard core fighting class' and hadn't been the slightest bit impressed. He'd mastered the stuff this guy was teaching by the time he was nine. Of course his father had been training him from the time he was four, but that was beside the point. He also wasn't about to let someone like this call his Slayer a pansy. "Hannah, take this guy over to the mats and take him down. He's only human, so pull your punches. Give him three matches." He turned to the martial arts teacher. "Let's see just what this class brings to her fighting skills that yours won't."

Hannah took the jerk down three times in five minutes. She could have done it quicker and it showed. She also was showing Dean what the class she was taking was teaching her, rolling dives, splits, and other ways to avoid being hit. The jerk never laid a hand on her no matter how hard he tried and Hannah didn't hit him more than once.

Dean knew the kind of man this jerk was and didn't want Hannah to get into trouble with him. So he walked over and stood above the braggart and tried to explain the difference. "I mastered the moves you're teaching in this class by the time I was nine. My father is an ex-marine and I've been training since I was four years old. You've got a good basic class here but Hannah and I fight for our lives on a nightly basis.

"She's been fighting for three years and I've been fighting for nineteen. We don't fight strictly in one single style because that would get us killed. We use anything and everything that will give us any advantage at all, from her gymnastics to street fighting to the down and dirty tricks you teach ladies to get away from rapists. Hannah, what's the first rule?"

"Don't die," Hannah answered from where she was getting her bag.

"And the second?" Dean waited.

"Do anything and everything you have to so that you don't break rule one."

Dean nodded at her answer and shrugged at the jerk of a teacher. "That's the difference between someone who is fighting for her life and someone who is fighting by a set of rules. If you'd like to train with us, we usually work on hand to hand around three o'clock." Then he turned around and walked Hannah out of the gym.

Dean thought about the situation he had left in the gym and how lately everything seemed to be going like that. His entire life was devolving into a series of small battles that outsiders were forcing his family to fight.

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The last thing that Marcus wanted in his town was Slayers. A family of Demon Hunters was bad enough but at least they were likely to overlook his work if the only reason they were here was to visit the boy in school. That he could handle, two Slayers were another thing altogether. Slayers meant trouble.

It was too bad that his forays into bureaucratic harassment didn't work. He really didn't think they would but he had hoped that they would push things back a little. But Slayers were ordered around by the meddling Powers That Be and there was a force behind that. They would go where the Powers wanted them regardless of what he did.

It was too bad that allied with a Seer there was little chance that his little empire wouldn't be discovered. He had sunk too much work into setting himself up as the man behind the throne to back out now. He looked at the ledgers on his desk covering not only the usual gambling, loan sharking, and prostitution rackets, but also the businesses that sold magical supplies and other things to anyone who wanted them, illegal or not, immoral or not. Sacrifices for magical or religious purposes were one of his most profitable sidelines.

The only good thing about this situation was that he WAS the man behind the throne instead of on it. He had set things up that way so that the human police would have someone to harass instead of him. He had too much work to do for them to be bothering him all of the time. Benjamin Blake was a figurehead and little more and he was well aware of it. That Marcus had to kowtow to him in public wasn't important. That Blake knew he was helpless without Marcus was.


	20. Chapter 20

The worst part of being a Watcher was writing the reports. Once a week (more often if something big happened) a report was sent to Cleveland from every Watcher in the world, including John and Dean Winchester. John could take training, making sure that his Slayer went to school, homework, even female issues which was something he hadn't thought of since he and Mary had thought that they would be naming their second child Samantha. But writing these reports were going to give him an aneurysm.

All three of the Winchester men, well make that four little Johnny was taking a nap in his portable crib, were in the library working on their various reports; John and Dean for the Watcher's Council and Sam for school. It didn't help that Dean and Sam were doing their silent communication thing and from the looks on their faces they were laughing at him.

He just didn't do reports well. He knew it, and his boys knew it. Dean had once scoffed at him and told him that he wrote like 'friggin Yoda, man!". He didn't see what the problem with that was; the little guy had always made sense to him. But he did know enough to understand that he didn't make much sense to other people when he wrote stuff down, and that was a real problem now.

Sam looked up from the paper he was rough drafting and stifled a giggle. He wondered how in the world his dad was going to screw up a simple report that Jordan had killed three vampires this week and had run into five different types of demons, most of them harmless. It was a sure bet that he would screw it up. If John Winchester had to write more than three words, only one of them would make sense and none of them would make sense in relation with each other. Often, only he or Dean could understand what he had written down and even they had a hard time sometimes.

Sam was never sure if it was his dad's Marine training, or just his dad's brain that caused the problem. He did know that it was more likely to be his dad's notes. They were often short phrases, things that made complete sense to John but few people in the world could read them and come up with a reasonable translation. The casserole note was the memory that came to mind. He and Dean had gone over and over that note for no less than two weeks before they had broken down and asked him what he had been talking about.

It turned out that it was John's term for several ghosts who were all mixed up together having been murdered either by the same person, at the same time, or in a battlefield situation. It was things like that, that were the real reason John's reports were so confusing. It made for a fun guessing game though, especially if he and Dean got drunk first.

The look on Sam's face was all that Dean needed to see to know what his little brother was thinking; the guessing game, adult version. They had several versions of the game they had played over the years as kids, but the adult version was played with alcohol. But this time they already knew what the answers should be, which meant that it wouldn't be as much fun.

He glanced down at Johnny who was making sucking sounds in his sleep. There were also the twins to consider, which meant that getting really drunk wouldn't be as much fun. Crying babies, in stereo plus hangover did not a good time make. Crap, just one more reason to hate this growing up stuff. Of course he wouldn't trade the twins in for anything, and God help whoever tried to hurt them.

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Benjamin Blake knew that Marcus was getting uptight about the Slayers who had moved into town. He didn't like it when the demon was upset because Marcus was the one who provided him with everything he had ever dreamed of; power, wealth, any female he wanted and if Marcus got upset and left town, then his would lose everything. He had to do something.

His chance came when this Kreeekk'ick demon showed up wanting to buy a set of mystical twin babies for a sacrifice. Now, Kreeekk'ick demons were nasty, and their ceremonies were even nastier, but he knew that didn't bother Marcus. Marcus didn't care what someone wanted as long as they were willing to pay for it, or the information on how to get it.

That was when his little plan sprang to mind. He didn't like Kreeekk'icks or their blood soaked ceremonies and Marcus didn't like the Slayers, who he knew were living with a set of demon marked twin babies. If one killed the other, it was all to the good and it really didn't matter who killed who.

"You got what we want?" the snake demon demanded. It was followed by two others of its kind.

"Not for sale myself," Blake held up his hand as the Kreeekk'ick hissed at him. "I do know where you can find a set of seven month old twins, demon marked for something, I don't know what. But they meet your qualifications; one boy, one girl, under a year old and mystical in some fashion. Gregg will take the standard fee for the information."

After a bit of grumbling, the demons paid up and Blake continued. "They live at the Slayer house on the Stanford campus and they are the only babies there, so if you grab them you won't be making a mistake by grabbing the wrong kids. There are two Slayers who live at the school and one of them is really tiny. I have no information on the security, I'm afraid you'll have to learn that on your own."

"You're honest for a human at least," the demon admitted and walked off, trailing his entourage behind him.

"Good luck, you're going to need it," Blake smiled. Tonight was a good night, if one of the Slayers fell, then he should get a really good reward from Marcus for this. He had stayed strictly within the boundaries and still had sent trouble hunting for Marcus' enemies. Oh yeah, this should really be worth something, maybe even a little vampire girl all his own. He knew they could take a lot of damage.


	21. Chapter 21

It was time for the quarterly check of Potentials and Rupert Giles was not looking forward to it. Due to circumstances beyond their control (once Willow had the flu and the second time there was an unexpected apocalypse) the last two checks had been missed. That meant that not only would they have to relocate all of the Potential Slayers that they had located nine months ago, (they checked to make sure they hadn't moved or something else had happened to them) they would also have to track down all of the Potentials that had been born within the same amount of time.

Needless to say, it was a job and a half. Usually the girls were where they had been before and those that weren't were rather easy to find because usually not much happened in three months time, and it was no more than a quick glance to make sure that she was ok before moving on to the next one. But a lot could and usually did happen in nine months. Five years ago they would have had the resources to do the checks. Five years ago the old Council actually had an entire department solely dedicated to the endeavor, in fact. Now, well, they did what they could and had to be satisfied with that.

Giles looked over the small room that was dedicated to tracking the various Potentials and wondered if they were going about this the right way. Tradition had not been thrown on its head, it had been tossed out the door with the way they had to do things now that the Council was so much smaller and had so few experienced people running it. Of course, now most of the people running it came out of the field rather than the academic side of things. Most of the time he thought that was for the better.

"Xander, you've kept up with public opinion better than I have. How are things regarding Slayers out there now?" It wasn't much more than a feeling, a nebulous thought right now, but he knew that Xander would have the information he needed to decide whether or not to drop it or embrace it.

Xander grinned. This was something he had been waiting for. He and Giles were laying out the maps of the world (every country, city, every type of map they could get their hands on really) all over the long table trying to get some type of order so that this job would be easier. His girls were finally being appreciated and he got to brag about it.

"They're finally getting what they deserve. People in general think it's great; they've got some real super heroines on their side in all of this. Heck, I've even seen a little girl down at the elementary school across from the donut shop where I get your jelly filled chasing a group of little boys on the playground, yelling about how she was a Slayer and she could beat up their Justice League butts any day."

"Well, as long as no one comes up with a Slayer costume, I suppose," Giles shuddered at the thought of a repeat of the Halloween incident.

"Sorry Giles, they already have. It's the hottest little girl costume on the market. None of the stores can keep it in stock. It comes with a really pretty little set of plastic swords, daggers, stakes and a fake crossbow in this little harness so they can carry it all. They're supposed to wear all of that with a pair of jeans and a pretty sweater and a pair of boots. There's also a big ole cross they wear too."

Giles whimpered at the thought of five year old Slayers. It was hard enough when they were fifteen and newly called. Willow, Buffy and Faith grinned at each other from where they were laying out the necessary spell components on the floor next to the head of the table. Most of the year Faith spent traveling around the world, checking up on Slayers and putting out hot spots, but she tried to get back as often as she could for this spell. Seeing all of the lights that pinpointed Potentials all over the world gave her a cozy, warm feeling, although she would have denied it to her last breath.

"What's the matter, Watcher mine? Don't you think we make good role models?" Buffy's fake pout was backed up the glint in her eyes that would have even the dumbest male trembling. Giles on the other hand, was her Watcher, which meant that not only did he know of the minefield ahead, he also knew how to get around it.

He pulled off his glasses and began to polish them. "Buffy, I have no problem with you as role models. What I have a problem with is the thought of another Halloween incident. Five year old Slayers," he shuddered once more.

Willow couldn't hold her giggles in any longer. The sight of her leaning into a giggling Faith was more than enough for Giles, especially because he could hear Xander stifling laughter beside him and he could see that Buffy was about to join the Dark Slayer and the Red Witch. "Could we please just get on with it?" He wasn't above begging when it came to this group and he knew it.

"Ok, where should we start?" Willow asked as she lit the candles.

"Let's go with California for old time's sake," Xander called. He also had those maps on top.

Faith took the map from him and laid it in the center of the design Willow had colored on the floor. A muttered incantation and quite a few disgusting things placed in the small metal cup on top of a Bunsen burner caused a rolling smoky fog to roll over the map. Buffy and Faith each took a handful of metal spikes, in Giles' opinion they looked more like antique hat pins, and began throwing them at the glowing dots that appeared in the smoke. Buffy took the south end of the map and Faith took the north end.

"Seven Potentials, wasn't there two last time?" Faith asked.

"Yes, two of them we were aware of, but the others," Giles sighed. "Let's get to work and find out who they are and if we already know about them."

Xander wrote down the names of the places marked on the map and went to the file cabinets along one wall, one for each continent. He got the file marked California and compared the two stapled together sets of papers with the list of place names. "Ok Willow, we have Judy Elson, age six, in Pasadena and Abby Jameson in someplace called North Fork."

By the time they had arrived at the last location, Palo Alto, they were all frustrated. Not only had Judy and Abby not been in California (which had almost sent Willow climbing the walls in a 'oh something happened and we should have been there to stop it' kind of way) they found out that Judy had moved out of state and Abby had moved out of the country altogether.

"There has to be an easier way to do this. I mean, I know we have to do the spell, but there has to be a way we can track these kids after we identify them!" Buffy tried not to whine.

"We don't got the guys to do it, girl." Faith said sympathetically.

"What do you girls think of contacting the parents as soon as we identify the Potential?" That was the thought that had been bugging Giles. If they could get parents to cooperate early enough then perhaps it would alleviate some of the problems they had been having.

"Well, we don't have to worry about this last one," Willow said as she looked in the scrying mirror. "She's Mary Winchester."


	22. Chapter 22

The Winchester men had a reputation, a reputation that was well earned, Willow knew and she just couldn't let someone else take the brunt of it when she was the one who had called all of the Slayers. She had done it, so she was the one responsible for making it so that little baby Mary would be a Slayer, rather than just having it be a possibility she would become the Slayer. She was also the one who had set them up as Watchers. She just really didn't want to get thumped, and all of that is why she took a plane rather than the direct route to California.

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John was walking by the TV room looking for Jordan for something when he spotted Hannah knitting on the couch while watching the twins. Little Johnny was rolling over and trying to scoot around, eager to explore his world. Mary was still in casts; although they would be coming off soon thank all that was good. It hindered her exploration and made her cranky. Just his luck, his granddaughter had his and Sammy's temperament. Thank God, Dean and Johnny had gotten Mary's instead of his.

"Hannah, have you seen Jordan?" he asked as he picked up Mary. He took a good look at the yarn she was knitting with. "What kind of yarn is that? And what the heck is that? I've used circular needles, but I've never seen a peg board used for knitting before."

It wasn't until he saw her eyes blaze with excitement that he realized what he had just said. He had told her that he knew how to knit. Suck it up, marine, he told himself sternly. You told her, now you have to deal with the consequences!

"It's called eyelash yarn, and a knifty knitter, it's really just a way to do French knitting but you'd think it was a brand new invention or something the way its been marketed lately. You know how to knit." She made it a statement rather than a question. "How did you learn?"

"When I was eleven years old I spent the summer in a partial body cast. Don't ask me how I ended up there, I won't tell you. My parents both worked, so my grandmother would watch me. She taught me how to knit as a way to keep me busy and she blackmailed me into making quite a few things that summer by threatening to give me the pink and purple winter set she was knitting. My parents had a rule, if grandma knitted us something, we had to use it. She let me use a blue yarn, but if I tried to weasel out of it, out came the pink and purple."

The grin on Hannah's face was scaring John. "The twins need baby blankets and they should come from family. I mean if your wife had survived she'd be making them, but since she didn't and neither of the guys is married," she trailed off.

John sighed. "You're worse than my grandmother ever was, young lady." The worst part was that he knew she was right. Mary would have made the twins blankets, and a whole lot more stuff too. Just then little Mary smacked him in the head with her cast and she began to cry. Even as he was rocking her, he came to the conclusion that his Mary had prompted her namesake into the action. It wouldn't have been the first time she'd smacked him upside the head when he hadn't done something she'd wanted him too. "Just, no pink and purple, ok?"

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"Deep breaths Willow," she told herself. "No hyperventilating, and no babbling and you can do this." It didn't help much, she was so nervous she was trembling like a leaf. She did not want to tell Dean Winchester that his newly found baby daughter was going to be called as a Slayer the minute she turned fifteen. Quickly pulling her courage together she knocked on the door.

"I got it!" came from inside. The door flew open and Jordan stared at the last person she had expected to see. "Willow!" she cried as she picked the witch off the ground and spun her around. "What are you doing here? It's great to see you! Is everything ok back in Cleveland?" Quickly she hurried Willow into the house and up the stairs to the TV room.

Apparently movie night was just starting at the Palo Alto Slayer house because a Disney movie was playing on the wide screen TV as the twins played on a blanket in front of it and the rest of the household was sitting on the chairs and couches with popcorn, sodas and beer. "Hey guys, Willow's here!"

Willow however, wasn't paying attention to the adults in the room; she was staring at the twins. She hadn't seen them while she was in Vegas; she had been busy with the investigation into what kind of demon killed the twins' mom. While she expected to feel the connection she had with Mary because she was a Potential Slayer, she hadn't thought of what that meant for Johnny. As Mary's twin he had been very close to a lot of magical energy at a very young age due to Mary's being chosen by the PTB's. There was a lot done to prepare a girl to become a Slayer and Johnny had been right next to all of it before they were born.

Johnny was a warlock, or maybe a mage, she couldn't tell how strong he was going to be. At any rate, he would be a magic user of some kind. He was already playing with little motes of magic, although he wasn't doing anything with them, just moving them around. Oh boy and she had thought this was going to be bad before.

Just wanting to get on with it she burst out before anyone could greet her, "Ok, I've got some stuff you need to hear, but I already know you're not going to like it, so I came myself cause it really is my fault and if there was a way to kick the PTB's butts we'd make sure you could cause if they hadn't picked Mary, nothing would have,"

"What do you mean, picked Mary," Dean's voice was loud and deep and completely over road Willow's babble.

"You just did the spell didn't you? The one you use to find the girls who are going to become Slayers." There wasn't a hint of a question in Sam's voice. He already knew what she meant.

Willow could feel the air around them turn dark and menacing. "Yes, and yes Mary is going to be a Slayer. But that isn't all; Johnny's going to be a magic user, a very good one." She closed her eyes and tensed waiting for the outburst to start.

There wasn't one and Willow actually thought that was worse. She peeked at them to find they were simply glaring at her and shaking. She could see how much they wanted to pound on her and she wasn't sure what was holding them back.

"What does that mean for Johnny? I already know about the Slayer bit for Mary, but what about my son?" Dean asked as soon as he though he could control his voice.

"He needs a teacher as soon as possible. I'll pick one out as soon as I get back to Cleveland. He's already playing with magic, but he can't do very much at this age, he's just moving bits of it around. When he's older, well that will depend a lot on you. It doesn't have to mean that he'll go all dark side or anything."

"I don't mean that," Dean waved off Willow's attempt to reassure him that his son wasn't destined to become a black magic user. "I mean does he have to end up a teacher or an ivory tower kinda guy? Am I going to have to tell him he can't Hunt?" Dean knew that most magic users didn't actually participate in any kind of hunting, supernatural or otherwise. It had something to do with not killing things.

"As long as you teach him that he can never use his magic to kill, even if it means saving a person's life, then yes, he can Hunt. It's killing that is the big no no," Willow reassured him. If that was the only thing they objected to, she would be saying thank you prayers for weeks.

"I'm Mary's Watcher," both Sam and Jess spoke up.

"Ok, I'll be Mary's partner's Watcher," Jess didn't want to cause any further problems.

"Sure, we can put that in her file so there won't be any questions about it later." Willow was just relieved that things were going so well. That whole 'gentlemen don't hit ladies' thing was really working in her favor today. That and the fact that she had shone that she was willing to do whatever they wanted as far as the twins were concerned.


	23. Chapter 23

Jessica wasn't sure why Sam was so upset as they carried the twins upstairs to their room. "Are you mad that I volunteered to be Mary's Watcher?"

Sam sighed; he hadn't expected Jess to understand where he was coming from. "It's not that, but I still wouldn't have let you do it. Not that you wouldn't make a good Watcher Jess, but Mary's my niece and there's no way I would let anyone else do that job but me." He threw her a smile to make sure she knew he wasn't mad at her. "It's just that the PTB's keep sticking their noses into my family's business and screwing with us. My mother died because that demon wants me for some reason. While it's probably because I'm a Seer, that doesn't mean it doesn't have other reasons too. When they chose Mary to be a Potential, they also made Johnny a magic user. Either of those reasons could be the reason that their mother was killed.

"Now, granted, for them that's not such a bad thing, but these are Dean's kids Jess. They deserve to have the choice if they want to go into the family business or not." He gently laid Mary down in her crib next to where Jess had laid Johnny. It had only been a couple of months since they had been rescued and no one wanted to try and separate them yet.

"Dad made a choice when I was a baby to make sure that whatever had killed Mom wouldn't be able to kill anyone else. He didn't just stop on that one idea because that's the sort of man he is. He's determined to kill every evil son of a bitch between that him and that demon, not just because they help to train him for the big fight, but because they are a threat to me." He smirked, "I know, ego much? But I think it's got to do both with the fact that I was marked by the demon for some reason and because I was the baby. You know, the baby of the family is never allowed to grow up thing"

"Was that what that fight was about when you said you were going on the Hunt last weekend?" Jess asked. She had been surprised to hear John and Sam yelling at each other over Sam's participation in a Hunt. It made sense to her that he wanted to go, there hadn't been anything else going on that weekend.

"Honey, my dad and I will butt heads at the drop of a hat. It took us not talking to each other for nearly a year before we sat down and talked about it. Basically it boils down to the fact that we're too much alike and he wants to make sure that I'm safe, no matter what. He didn't think it was a good idea for me to go on that particular Hunt because the thing was attacking psychics. We've worked it out as much as we can for now but you're going to have to learn to deal with us blowing up at each other because it isn't going to stop, we're both too stubborn.

"Dean was the one who chose this life for the right reasons, I think. It wasn't that the demon killed Mom, or that Dad pushed him into it. He watched as Dad helped so many people and said that is what I want to do. His definition of the family business is killing things and helping people and that comes second for him, right after keeping his family safe and together. I just wish for Dean's sake, that his kids had the same choice he did. I mean, I've yelled and thrown temper tantrums over the years about how Dad was pushing us into this life, but the fact is Dean could have left if he wanted too.

"He stayed for Dad and for me and now, these two won't have that choice." He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his chest. They stood watching the twins sleep, her back to his front and his head perched on top of hers. "They just shouldn't have had their choices taken away Jess. If they want this life it would be one thing, but only if they want it."

"What about us? I mean, are you going to make sure that our kids have a choice?" Jess asked. Yes, their relationship had begun as a whirlwind romance but nothing she had seen, from the demon riots in LA to the patrols and Hunts that she had been involved in during the last two months had changed her mind. She loved Sam and wanted to marry him. They hadn't really talked about it, but she was sure.

"Are you sure?" Sam asked, amazed that she would even consider marrying him.

SUPERNATURALSUPERNATURALSUPERNATURALSUPERNATURAL

Halloween at the Slayer house was THE place to be as far as the students of Stanford College were concerned. Not only was it a party, (one that Jess had organized as none of the men wanted anything to do with it) but it was also a chance to actually get into the Slayer house and it was a very exclusive party to boot. The invitations had been the most talked about items for the last two weeks.

The rules were rather strict, although they made perfect sense if you thought about it. Any one who wished could dress up in a costume, but no one was allowed to come dressed as a supernatural creature. No vampires, ghouls, zombies, vengeful spirits or anything else of that nature would be allowed into the Slayer house. As Jess had explained to one of the sorority girls who was looking for an invite, "If you want to make the mistake of walking up to men who never go unarmed looking like one of the things they Hunt on a regular basis, be my guest. Just don't come running to me when you get shot in the chest with a load of rock salt."

So it was no surprise that those who showed up for the party and 'training movie' marathon were dressed as everything from doctors and nurses to rock stars; everything but the supernatural. One girl who had been dragged there by her boyfriend came dressed as a nun, both to enforce the idea to her boyfriend that nothing was happening no matter what he thought, and so that she could bring her cross and hold it without being called on it or insulting anyone. She knew that the Pope had endorsed the Slayers publicly but she wasn't a Catholic and wasn't sure no matter how many times she was told. She figured the best thing she could do was to go and check things out for herself.

Curiosity, combined with everything from heroine worship to nervousness to wary acceptance was the normal reaction to the presence of a Slayer and it showed in the faces of those people who showed up for the party. Normally Dean would have been very interested in checking out all of the college girls who were attending the party but Willow's news had knocked him for a loop and the only thing he wanted to do was spend some quiet time watching his kids. He really didn't have the focus he needed to work his charm or to answer their questions. It wasn't long before he escaped up to the twins' room.

It wasn't the thought that Mary was a Potential Slayer or that Johnny was a magic user that ticked him off. It was the knowledge that he already had a Slayer to watch over and he wouldn't be able to be Mary's Watcher or Johnny's teacher. He was already committed to Hannah. That Sam had volunteered to be Mary's Watcher was the only thing that made this even the smallest bit alright with him. It wasn't that he regretted being Hannah's Watcher; it was just that he wanted to be able to be there for his little girl.

He ghosted his hand over Mary's head as she slept. Sam hadn't wanted to be a part of the family business for years, and while he had spent the summer Hunting, Dean had expected him to go back to school and forget about Hunting. Instead, he had moved back in with them, babysat with his girlfriend, made sure that they had real meals like they really hadn't had since Mom had died and did tons of research for them in between his school assignments.

Somehow thanks to that bitch he had slept with he had his family back better than ever. His brother was back with them and had made sure that when the time came Mary wouldn't have to have a stranger watch her back. That wasn't true for Johnny, but whoever Willow picked as his teacher had time to become part of the family before he really needed her. Jordan and Hannah had already become the little sisters he had never had. Jessica was quickly becoming the girl that Dean would have picked out for his little brother if he had been given the chance.

All in all he had to admit that things were going pretty good for them lately. Mary would even get her casts off tomorrow. He turned to look at his son. "Don't you worry about anything, little man. That teacher of yours will have to pass our tests before he gets anywhere near you." Maybe he should start looking into alternate teachers for Johnny. Just because Willow was the most powerful white witch in the world didn't mean that she knew what was right for a Winchester. They needed special handling.


	24. Chapter 24

The party was in full swing with Jess sitting on Sam's lap as he laughed his head off through the horror movie that was showing and most of the rest of the guests talking, laughing and in general having fun, although a few were listening with rapt attention to John's lecture to Jordan about what was and what wasn't accurate about the movie. That is it was until Sam grabbed his head and almost fell out of his chair.

"Sam!" Jess called. She had seen his visions before and knew what to do when he had one. She slipped off his lap and pulled him down to the floor.

"Sam, what is it?" John asked. He'd turned off the movie and yelled for quiet as soon as he saw his son go down.

"Kreeekk'ick demons, they're coming here." Sam managed to gasp out.

"How many?" John asked. He wasn't about to waste time and he motioned Jordan to move the civilians into the kitchen. It was easily the most defensible room in the place as it was separated from the TV room (formerly the dinning room) only by a breakfast bar.

"About twenty I think, coming in through the front." The pain from the visions was fading fast, something that he was very thankful for. He knew that some Seers didn't recover as fast as he did, being out for hours from the pain. On the other hand, some Seers didn't get the pain at all, which he really was jealous of.

"What are they?" Jessica asked. She hadn't heard of these demons yet but if she was going to be the Watcher for Mary's partner she knew she'd better start learning fast. She only had about fifteen years to get ready, and knowing this family it would mostly be on the job training.

"Snake demons, they have to have been sent. They're fanatics, the only thing they care about are their rituals. Guns won't work. They have to be sliced and diced to kill them." Sam said as he stood up and accepted both the war axe and the machete that John handed to him. Slice and dice was the family term for demons that needed to be cut up into pieces rather than a simple decapitation.

Hannah had run upstairs and she and Dean came running into the TV room with yet more bladed weapons. "We blocked off the other rooms so they have to come through here to get upstairs," Dean reported as he handed out the weapons he was carrying.

"Good, I don't know what they're after, but they're relentless when it comes to getting what they want." Sam turned to the door leading to the front foyer, where they could hear the front door shatter.

"Good thing the budget includes repairs," Dean muttered. "What kind of demon is stupid enough to storm a Slayer house? Don't they realize we're gonna be waiting for them?" While he generally preferred stupid demons they were very annoying when he was trying to spend some quality brooding time. Not that he would admit that he was brooding, that was too close to chick-flick for him. Besides, it wasn't like he did it very often, so interrupting what little time he did take out for it did not need to be interrupted.

"Kreeekk'ick, snake, slice and dice," Sam said as the first one came through the door. That was all Dean needed to hear. It really was a good thing Sammy had an encyclopedia for a brain he decided as he took on his first demon of the night. With it he could reduce the most complex situation into a handful of words. Of course you had to be a Winchester, or Winchester trained to understand those words, he thought as he took off the demon's head. His next blow took off the arm of the demon next to it as it swung for Hannah.

No one noticed the snake demon dressed in black as it made its way around the edges of the room. They were all occupied by the others and the civilians behind them were all staring at the battle in front of them. It had tried all of the other entrances it could see, but they were all blocked. Its brothers would keep the Slayers, Watchers and others occupied while he went for the twins that were required for the ritual.

It ran up the stairs and quickly searched the upstairs rooms until he found the twins. Gently he gathered the twins into his arms and snuck back down the stairs. He would have made it if Johnny hadn't woken up. Being so young the only thing Johnny could do was to cry. Unfortunately for the demon this had several effects. It was the only the first one that the demon could see. Every head of every warrior in the house shot up and targeted him.

"He's got the kids!" came the roar from John. Instantly Hannah and Jordan stepped up their attacks while the Winchesters went after the demon that had made the very big mistake of touching one of theirs. The other effect wasn't seen immediately and wasn't one that anyone had expected.

Down in San Francisco, the Charmed Ones were having their own Halloween party at their club P3. They hadn't bothered to change the name after the discovery of their half sister Page, but they had accepted her into the family with open arms. After all, it wasn't her fault that she was half White Lighter, or that she had been put up for adoption so that a certain Dark Lighter couldn't find her.

Paige heard a baby's cry and her first thought was that it was one of her nephews, who were sleeping in the back room. Quickly excusing herself from her dance partner, she slipped into the back room only to find that her sister Phoebe was giving Chris, the youngest Halliwell boy a bottle. "I thought I heard someone crying in here," she whispered.

Phoebe shook her head. "Chris didn't cry and the other two are fast asleep. They aren't even having nightmares."

"Then who is crying?" Paige wondered.

"It must be a new charge for you. Why don't you orb to where ever the crying is coming from?"

"Good idea, I'll see you later. Hopefully all he or she needs is a bottle and a change," Paige said with a smile. She wasn't expecting to orb into a battle. Three adult males were fighting their way through a group of demons towards a demon who was carrying two babies, one of whom was crying at the top of his or her lungs. Two girls, who had to be Slayers from the way they were wiping out the demons behind the men, were also guarding a large group of what looked like normal humans.

Well, if that baby was her charge, there was no way that she was going to let this become a hostage situation. "Babies," she said firmly and the twins orbed into her arms. "You know guys, I have a feeling that there's a reason I'm your White Lighter and it doesn't have anything to do with the unavailability of anyone else."

Dean, John and Sam's weapons made quick work of the demon before they spun around looking for the twins. They saw them cuddled in the arms of a young woman who was smiling down at them. They also saw that Hannah, Jordan and Jess had taken care of the last of the Kreeekk'ick.

"Hi!," Paige said brightly. "Do one of you want to introduce me to my new charge?"


End file.
